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i 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/f/  3 

iff, 7.   re. 


The  Near  East 


"/  wank'd  to  go  info  a  Harem.  " 

—  (As  reported  in  llio  Arabian  Nights.) 


The  Near  East 


BY 


W.  Y.  Morgan 

Author  of  "A  Journey  of  a  Jayhawher'' 
and  "A  Jayhawker  in  Europe" 


Illustrated  by  Albert  T.  Reid 


SECOND  EDITION 


MONOTTPED  AND  PRINTED  BT 

CRANE  &  COMPANY 

TOPEKA 


Copyright  1913 
By  Crane  &  Company 


DR 
IS 

/9/3 


Explanatory 


These  letters  were  written  for  the  Hutch- 
inson Daily  News  in  the  summer  and  fall  of 
1913,  and  are  printed  in  book  form  without 
revision.  They  tell  some  of  the  conditions 
and  characteristics  of  the  people  of  The  Near 
East  as  they  appeared  to  a  newspaper  man 
who  had  no  mission  or  object  except  to  see 
the  Turk  and  his  neighbors  before  they  were 
put  out  of  business  or  brought  up  to  date. 

W.  Y.  Morgan. 

Hutchinson,  Kansas,  November  1,  1913. 


Table  of  Contents 

Faae 

Eastward,  IIo! 1 

Algiers  and  Arabs, ° 

The  Tideless  Sea, 16 

Trieste  of  New 25 

Vienna  and  the  Viennese, 32 

Down  the  Danube, 40 

The  Capital  of  the  Magyars 48 

Into  the  Balkans, 57 

The  Balkan  Powder  Box, 65 

Something  About  Servians, 73 

Story  of  the  Servians 80 

A  Balkan  Paris, 90 

Constantinople,  the  Different, 101 

The  Turk  Up  Close, HO 

The  Turk,  Gentleman 118 

The  Harem  Habit, 127 

The  Problem  of  the  Turk, 135 

Among  the  Greeks, 147 

The  Acropolis  of  Athens 156 

The  Old  Greeks  and  the  New 166 

No  Man's  Land — Albania, 179 

The  Mitey  Montenegro 189 

The  Black  Mountain 200 

Delightful  Dalmatia 208 

The  Balkan  Brethren 217 

A  Turkish  Town 226 

The  Near  East 235 


The  Near  East 


Eastward,  Ho  ! 

Steamship  Kaiser  Franz  Joseph,  August  8. 

There  is  a  comparatively  new  road  to  the 
East.  Instead  of  following  the  old  highway 
across  the  northern  Atlantic  via  England, 
France  or  Germany,  this  trip  is  on  the  southern 
route  through  the  Strai's  of  Gibraltar,  along 
the  Mediterranean,  and  up  the  ancient  Adri- 
atic to  the  Austrian  port  of  Trieste.  It  is 
5,000  miles  from  New  York  to  Trieste,  but 
when  the  tripper  gets  there  he  will  be  on  the 
other  side  of  Europe,  beyond  the  regular 
haunts  of  tourists,  safely  past  the  delights  and 
delays  of  Paris  and  Berlin,  close  to  the  classic 
lands  of  Greece  and  the  crescent  of  the  disap- 
pearing Turk. 

In  many  respects  this  is  an  unexplored  coun- 
try in  recent  years,  for  the  civilization  of  the 
East  practically  stopped  short  a  few  centuries 

(1) 


2  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ago,  and  the  active,  enterprising  people  of  the 
West  kept  on  toward  the  setting  sun.  The 
far  Orient  is  in  India,  China,  and  Japan,  but 
the  Near  East  of  the  Slav,  the  Greek  and  the 
Turk,  with  their  numerous  cousins  and  aliases, 
is  the  East  of  our  school-books.  It  is  the 
country  of  which  Homer  sang,  where  Alex- 
ander conquered,  and  Paul  preached.  It  has 
been  a  battleground  from  the  time  of  the  siege 
of  Troy  and  the  later  fall  of  Constantinople, 
for  the  hostile  forces  that  came  out  of  the 
mysterious  Asia.  Just  now  the  Near  East  is 
looking  up,  and  with  the  success  of  the  Balkan 
states,  is  doubtless  on  its  way  to  civilization, 
as  we  call  it,  and  to  the  destruction  of  its  own 
delightful  differences  from  everybody  and  ev- 
erything else. 

The  Near  East  ought  to  be  worth  a  visit  and 
a  story,  for  very  few  travel-writers  have  gone 
in  among  these  folks  who  disregard  the  cus- 
toms and  the  sanitary  regulations  that  have 
become  almost  universal.  In  order  to  get  to 
the  Turk  and  his  neighbors  before  the  advance 
of  civilization  has  converted  or  killed  them,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  move  quickly,  for  Capital 
is  going  in  to  develop  the  Balkans,  and  then 


EASTWARD,  HO! 


there  will  be  nothing  more  novel  among  the 
Bulgars  and  the  Serbs  than  there  is  now  in 
Pennsylvania. 

The  ship  "Kaiser  Franz  Joseph,  the  First," 
is  the  largest,  newest  and  best  equipped  boat 
regularly  in  the  Mediterranean  service.  It  is 
of  the  Austro-American  line,  and  is  probably 
the  finest  ship  of  its  size  on  any  of  the  oceans, 
and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal,  for  in  these 
days  an  ocean  liner  compares  favorably  with 
an  elegant  hotel.  In  addition  to  the  usual  ac- 
commodations the  Franz  Joseph  has  a  gym- 
nasium where  the  passengers  exercise  and  keep 
themselves  in  appetite  for  meals,  a  palm  gar- 
den, and  a  winter  garden  on  deck  inclosed  in 
glass.  A  fine  band  plays  three  concerts  a  day 
and  turns  out  yards  on  yards  of  Viennese 
waltzes,  with  an  occasional  rag-time  out  of 
consideration  for  the  Americans.  There  is 
eating  and  drinking  and  smoking  and  dancing, 
with  games  and  jokes  and  stunts  that  are  pos- 
sible in  a  jolly  company  brought  together  for 
two  weeks  of  close  association.  The  people 
who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships  during  the 
present  age  are  as  differently  fixed  from  those 


THE  NEAR  EAST 


who  crossed  the  ocean  to  settle  the  New  World 
as  a  Pullman  passenger  car  journey  is  from  a 
ride  behind  an  ox  team.  We  even  have  a 
daily  paper  every  day,  and  it  is  decidedly 
interesting  when  in  mid-ocean  to  pick  up  the 
Franz  Joseph  Evening  Herald  and  read  the 
news  of  the  world  received  by  wireless.  It 
enables  us  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  events  of 
the  day — and  especially  the  baseball  scores. 

Coming  on  the  Franz  Joseph  has  the  advan- 
tage of  quickly  putting  one  into  several  for- 
eign lands.  The  ship  is  Austrian  and  Com- 
mander Gerolimich  is  an  Austrian  from  Trieste, 
which  means  that  he  has  two  native  tongues — 
German  and  Italian.  The  officers  and  crew 
are  largely  Italians  and  Greeks,  with  a  few 
Albanians.  The  cooks  are  Swiss,  the  bill  of 
fare  is  in  French,  the  eats  are  Italian,  the 
drinks  are  German,  and  the  money  is  Ameri- 
can. In  the  steerage  are  a  thousand  Greeks 
and  Italians  returning  to  their  old  homes,  with 
more  clothes  and  money  and  less  dirt  and 
smell  than  they  brought  with  them  when  they 
entered    under    the   folds    of   the    Stars    and 


EASTWARD,  Iio! 


Stripes.  The  passengers  in  the  first  and  sec- 
ond cabin  are  mostly  Americans,  but  there 
are  Hungarians,  EngHsh,  Spanish,  French, 
Swiss,  Itah'ans,  Austrians,  Germans,  and  one 
man  from  Boston.  Over  all  this  aggregation 
there  has  rested  the  confidence  which  people 
have  in  a  good  ship  and  a  good  captain  in 
whom  they  trust. 

Speaking  of  the  man  from  Boston,  reminds 
me  of  a  rather  good  answer  he  made  to  an 
inquirer  who  asked  :  "Boston — in  what  state 
is  Boston?"  "Boston,"  he  said,  "is  a  state 
of  mind." 

The  smoking-room  is  the  center  of  the  ship*s 
activity  and  also  of  all  the  information  and 
mis-information  that  is  naturally  scattered  in 
the  little  community.  The  first  day  out  we 
were  told  confidentially  by  nearly  everyone 
that  the  auburn-haired  man  who  got  on  the 
boat  just  as  it  was  pulling  out,  was  really  a 
government  detective  who  would  ingratiate 
himself  with  the  passengers  and  learn  which  of 
us  were  going  to  smuggle  diamonds  and  seal- 
skins on  our  return.  I  kept  away  from  him 
for  several  days,  and  then  I  found  he  was  an 


6  THE   NEAR   EAST 


advertising  agent  for  a  patent  medicine. 
Another  passenger  was  reported  very  wealthy, 
and  to  have  in  his  cabin  a  case  of  champagne. 
He  was  decidedly  popular  until  he  innocently 
mentioned  the  fact  that  he  had  brought  a  case 
of  ginger  ale  on  board  because  he  did  not  like 
the  stale  water  of  a  ship.  He  then  faded  into 
obscurity.  A  musical  enthusiast  asked  a  New 
York  broker  if  he  played  Wagner.  "Yes,  I 
won  three  dollars  from  him  at  pinochle  on  the 
Potsdam." 

I  have  a  great  admiration  for  that  Italian, 
Christopher  Columbus,  who  sailed  for  weeks 
in  a  foolish  little  boat  to  find  something  he  was 
not  sure  of,  and  who  did  not  turn  back.  Any 
sane,  sensible  sailor  would  have  turned  around 
and  gone  home  without  discovering  America. 
Columbus  was  considered  crazy  by  the  wise 
men  of  Italy  and  Spain,  and  he  undoubtedly 
was  a  crank.  In  these  days  his  family  would 
have  had  a  guardian  appointed.  Just  think 
of  the  nerve  of  sailing  on  and  on,  farther  from 
home  every  day  and  every  week,  not  knowing 
for  sure  whether  you  would  strike  India  or 
run  off  the  edge  of  the  earth  as  everybody  had 


EASTWARD,  HO 


said  you  would.  But  I  suppose  after  he  had 
gone  about  so  far  on  his  journey  he  thought  he 
might  as  well  go  ahead  and  fall  off  as  go  back 
to  Spain  and  be  hung  for  obtaining  ships  under 
false  pretenses.  AYe  have  come  from  New 
York  to  the  Spanish  coast,  over  3,000  miles, 
about  the  distance  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco.  Columbus  in  his  little  ship  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  was  like  driving  from  New 
York  to  Frisco  would  be  if  the  country  were 
barren  and  your  only  means  of  locomotion  was 
a  mule  team  and  a  lumber  wagon. 


Algiers  and  Arabs 

Steamship  Franz  Joseph,  August  9. 
We  have  been  in  Algiers  for  a  half-day  and 
an  evening.  It  did  not  look  like  Africa  to  me. 
In  the  geography  I  studied  Africa  consisted  of 
a  pale  cream  center  called  the  desert  of  Sa- 
hara, with  green  and  yellow  strips  around  the 
edges.  Algiers  was  on  the  north  end  of  the 
map,  and  that  much  is  correct.  But  the  high 
hills  that  rose  from  the  coast  as  the  Franz 
Joseph  approached  the  port  were  covered  with 
beautiful  green  stripes  of  cultivated  gardens 
and  orchards,  dotted  with  white  houses  and 
the  dark  foliage  of  forest  trees.  The  city  it- 
self rose  from  the  harbor  front  like  a  semi- 
circle of  an  amphitheatre,  tier  of  houses  above 
tier,  at  various  points  churches,  mosques,  and 
structures  which  I  took  to  be  palaces,  but 
which  turned  out  to  be  restaurants.  The  blue 
of  the  Mediterranean  was  the  foreground  of 
this  beautiful  landscape,  which  stretched  from 
the  water's  edge  to  the  lighter  shade  of  blue 

(8) 


ALGIERS  AND   ARABS  9 

in  the  southern  sky.  The  picture  was  one 
that  artist's  brush  would  fail  in  copying  or 
writer's  pencil  in  describing. 

Algiers  is  a  city  of  over  100,000  population. 
It  has  better-looking  buildings  in  its  business 
district  than  Kansas  City,  and  its  apartment 
houses  are  models  which  New  York  could  copy. 
One  is  hardly  prepared  for  eight-story  struc- 
tures in  Africa,  but  here  they  are.  And  down 
the  street  go  the  camel,  the  automobile,  the 
donkey  and  the  trolley  car,  evidence  that  the 
Orient  and  the  Occident  are  getting  very  much 
mixed. 

Algiers  was  a  good  town  when  Columbus 
discovered  America.  The  native  Africans  had 
been  conquered  and  assimilated  by  the  Arabs, 
and  a  strong  Mohammedan  state  resulted. 
Then  the  foolish  Christians  drove  the  Jews 
out  of  Spain  and  many  of  them  came  to  the 
protection  of  the  more  liberal  Ottomans.  The 
Mohammedan  religion  is  not  much  on  progress 
and  its  strong  teachings  in  philosophy  do  not 
develop  manufactures  and  trade.  A  little 
over  a  hundred  years  ago  the  principal  occu- 
pation of  the  Algerian  was  piracy.     It  was  an 


10  THE  NEAR  EAST 

easy  job,  a  good  deal  like  operating  on  Wall 
Street.  The  great  object  was  to  locate  the 
other  fellow's  ship,  capture  and  possess  its 
contents,  and  hold  the  sailors  as  slaves  for 
work  or  ransom.  Several  years  after  our  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  there  were  35,000 
Christian  slaves  held  in  Algiers  at  one  time. 
When  the  commercial  nations  of  the  world 
could  stand  this  no  longer  they  began  a  war 
against  the  pirates,  in  which  the  United  States 
took  an  honorable  part,  and  put  an  end  to  the 
great  prosperity  of  the  Algerians  and  their 
neighbors. 

It  was  difficult  to  get  down  to  hard  work, 
and  Algiers  was  like  a  boom  town  in  the  West 
when  the  boom  is  busted.  Fifty-eight  years 
ago  the  French  took  some  excuse  for  "inter- 
vention," and  came  across  from  their  own 
country,  a  night's  sail  to  the  north.  Thus 
Algiers  became  French,  and  the  language  of 
Paris,  the  ways  of  Paris,  and  much  of  the 
habits  of  Paris  are  the  superficial  coat  on  this 
city  and  this  people  today. 

It  was  a  beautiful  afternoon  when  we  landed 
and  drove  through  a  lane  of  palm  trees  to  the 


ALGIERS   AND   ARABS  11 

park,  which  some  old  sultan  planted  many 
years  ago  with  never  a  thought  of  the  profit 
his  descendants  would  get  by  acting  as  guides 
for  American  tourists.  We  had  fought  our 
way  to  the  carriage  through  a  mob  of  Arabs 
who  besought  us  to  buy  things,  from  oriental 
rugs  to  embroidered  leather,  hand-made  brass 
goods,  villainous-looking  knives,  and  delicious 
fruit.  During  that  two  hours'  drive  these 
descendants  of  the  pirates  never  left  us,  and  I 
often  got  mixed  up  in  repeating  "how  beauti- 
ful" about  the  landscape  and  "no,  no,"  to  the 
running  salesmen.  That  part  of  the  city 
where  the  French  and  other  foreigners  have 
their  homes  is  a  district  of  beautiful  villas, 
with  gardens  and  flowers  and  trees.  That 
part  where  the  Arabs  reside  is  a  collection  of 
narrow  streets,  curious  houses,  and  wonderful 
smells. 

They  were  all  "Arabs"  to  me,  but  that 
means  also  Turks,  Egyptians,  Moors,  Spanish 
Jews,  and  natives  of  all  parts  of  northern  Af- 
rica, and  of  all  colors  except  white.  The  men 
wore  the  fez  or  the  turban,  and  as  a  rule  were 
attired  in  a  costume  which  was  a  cross  between 


12  THE  NEAR  EAST 

a  bath-robe  and  a  bed-spread.  They  wrapped 
this  around  them  in  a  rather  decent  manner, 
and  to  my  surprise  it  stayed  on.  There  was 
not  much  work  being  done.  A  store  was 
about  four  feet  by  ten  feet,  and  the  proprietor 
sat  on  the  sidewalk.  He  had  only  one  kind 
of  goods,  and  he  evidently  did  not  advertise. 
Every  few  yards  there  would  be  a  cafe  with  a 
few  Arabs  sitting  in  the  front,  sometimes 
drinking  coffee  but  usually  just  thinking. 
Vegetables  and  fruit,  fancy  metal  ornaments, 
ordinary  household  goods  and  tobacco  were 
the  staples  in  the  shops.  The  street  itself  was 
almost  eight  feet  wide,  and  was  generally  so 
steep  that  it  was  a  series  of  steps,  down  which 
ran  the  sewage,  in  which  played  the  children. 
There  were  ladies  in  our  party  who  criticised 
these  arrangements,  but  the  Arabs  don't  mind 
criticism  from  such  unbelievers. 

An  Arab  woman  is  dressed  in  proper  fashion 
when  she  winds  a  sheet  of  soft  white  goods 
around  herself  and  puts  on  a  veil  which  covers 
her  face  up  to  her  eyes.  The  gown  culmi- 
nates in  some  way  as  a  turban  and  covers 
her  forehead,  so  all  that  a  man  can  see  of  that 


ALGIERS  AND   ARABS  13 


lady  is  a  ghostlike  figure  with  two  bright  eyes. 
I  was  naturally  interested,  because  the  cos- 
tume was  different  from  that  which  is  worn  at 
home,  except  at  an  early  morning  fire.  At 
first  I  refrained  from  curious  looks,  for  fear  I 
might  offend  the  ladies.  But  I  tried  a  look 
at  one  and  she  did  not  seem  to  mind.  I 
looked  at  her  and  she  looked  at  me.  I  imag- 
ined I  saw  the  beginnings  of  a  lady-like  Ara- 
bian wink.  Just  to  be  polite  I  would  have 
winked  once  myself,  but  I  saw  a  half-dozen 
male  Arabs  observing  the  situation,  and  I 
promptly  decided  that  winking  was  not  in 
good  form  for  an  American  at  such  a  time. 
So  I  never  will  know  whether  that  Arabess 
was  a  winker  or  a  deceiver,  but  I  am  ahve 
and  well,  which  is  some  satisfaction. 

In  the  evening  our  party  from  the  ship 
wanted  to  do  something  exciting.  We  hired 
a  guide  and  told  him  to  show  us  Algiers  by 
electric  light.  He  marched  us  up  and  down 
several  streets  and  into  a  moving-picture 
show.  The  first  film  was  one  of  those  thrilling 
melodramas  of  the  American  cowboy,  the 
villain,  the  sheriff,  the  fight,  and  the  final 


14  THE  NEAR  EAST 

triumph  of  innocence  with  matrimony.  That 
was  the  best  Algiers  could  do  for  us  in  the  way 
of  devilishness,  so  we  went  to  the  city  square 
and  heard  a  good  French  military  band. 

Algiers  is  becoming  quite  a  winter  resort, 
especially  for  French  and  English.  The  cli- 
mate is  like  that  of  the  Riviera,  and  the  addi- 
tional charm  of  the  Arab  and  the  Moor  makes 
it  more  interesting.  And  then  there  are  the 
"bargains."  No  Arabian  merchant  has  a 
*' fixed  price."  He  is  ready  to  meet  his  cus- 
tomer half-way.  The  shopping  instinct,  which 
is  strong  in  some  of  us,  is  thus  given  a  great 
opportunity.  I  saw  a  Chicago  lady  offer  $3 
for  a  rug  which  the  merchant  priced  at  $25. 
Just  before  the  boat  sailed  she  got  it  for  $3.50. 
A  very  curious  sword  was  coveted  for  a  present 
for  some  man  at  home.  The  lady  and  the 
merchant  put  in  forty-five  minutes,  and  the 
weapon  goes  to  a  fellow  in  Boston  at  a  cost 
of  two  dollars,  when  the  original  demand  was 
ten  dollars.  Bargain-hunting  with  women  is 
a  good  deal  like  duck-hunting  with  men. 
When  the  ducks  appear  in  the  fall  the  duck- 
hunter  cannot  resist  the  call  of  the  game. 


ALGIERS  AND   ARABS  15 

When  the  "bargains"  appear  as  they  do  in 
Algiers,  the  bargain-hunter  refuses  to  look  at 
scenery  or  art,  and  goes  after  the  game. 

Very  few  duck-hunters  ever  get  any  ducks 
and  very  few  bargain-hunters  get  any  bar- 
gains. The  duck-hunter  gets  rheumatism  and 
the  bargain-hunter  gets  stuck.  But  they  have 
had  the  fun  of  the  hunt,  and  they  will  respond 
to  the  call  when  it  comes  again. 


The  Tldeless  Sea 

Steamship  Kaiser  Franz  Joseph, 
Off  the  Dalmatian  Coast,  Aug.  11. 
The  Mediterranean  is  the  greatest  of  the 
world's  big  waters.  Along  with  the  bays  and 
seas  of  its  border  it  was  the  only  sea  that  the 
Hebrews  knew.  It  was  the  only  sea  for  the 
Egyptians,  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.  It 
is  the  only  body  of  water  that  has  a  history 
going  back  as  far  as  the  records  and  traditions 
of  men.  The  Pacific  Ocean  was  "discovered" 
four  hundred  years  ago.  The  Atlantic  was  an 
unknown  proposition  until  a  short  time  before 
that.  But  the  Mediterranean,  with  its  Adri- 
atic and  ^gean  arms,  was  the  common  carrier 
for  the  known  world  on  three  continents  for 
centuries  of  the  world's  history.  It  is  the  sea 
over  which  Ulysses  wandered  and  on  which 
iEneas  took  his  flight  from  Troy.  It  was  the 
scene  of  the  activities  of  the  Greeks  and  then 
of  the  Romans.  It  carried  Peter  and  Paul  to 
Rome  and  later  it  bore  the  Crusaders  to  their 

(16) 


THE  TIDELESS  SEA  17 


wars  for  the  Holy  Scpulclicr.  It  was  in  an- 
cient days,  as  it  is  now,  the  means  of  commu- 
nication between  Europe,  Africa  and  Asia,  the 
sea  of  commerce  and  the  resort  for  pleasure 
of  people  of  varied  races  and  diverse  languages. 
With  a  good  imagination  the  traveler  on  the 
Franz  Joseph  can  re-people  the  shores  with  the 
gods  and  heroes  of  old,  can  cover  the  waters 
with  the  ancient  galleys,  and  recall  from  the 
obscurity  of  early  history  the  great  events 
that  marked  the  progress  of  the  world. 

The  Mediterranean  has  been  called  the  tide- 
less  sea,  as  there  is  little  or  no  tide  in  its  waters. 
The  tide  is  something  that  no  one  understands, 
although  everybody  know  just  how  it  is.  The 
proper  theory  is  that  the  moon  has  an  at- 
tractive power,  as  the  earth  has  of  gravity. 
This  moon  gravity  draws  everything  toward 
itself ;  that  is,  everything  not  fast  to  the  earth. 
The  water  in  the  oceans  yields  to  the  power 
of  the  moon  when  it  draws  to  fill,  and  the 
water  bunches  together  in  the  center,  receding 
at  the  shores,  and  that  is  low  tide.  Then  the 
moon  goes  around  to  the  other  side  of  the 


18  THE  NEAR  EAST 

earth,  the  water  returns  with  a  rush,  and  that 
is  high  tide. 

But  there  are  two  tides  a  day  and  the  moon 
goes  around  only  once,  so  it  is  necessary  to 
suppose  that  when  the  moon  pulls  on  either 
side  it  makes  the  ebb  and  flow.  There  is 
nothing  to  prove  this  theory  except  that  the 
tide  and  the  moon  work  on  the  same  schedule. 
I  have  often  opposed  the  moon  theory  in  the 
debates  on  the  tide  question  that  invariably 
take  place  on  a  ship.  But  I  have  never  been 
able  to  work  out  any  good  scheme  to  offer 
against  the  accepted  one,  and  as  the  man  in 
the  moon  can't  defend  himself  it  is  just  as 
well  to  lay  the  whole  works  at  his  door. 

But  why  is  it  that  the  Mediterranean  has 
no  tide  while  Lake  Erie  does?  That  is  a 
question  with  which  you  can  stump  the  ex- 
plainer of  tides.  Nobody  knows.  It  is  like 
the  mystery  of  what  becomes  of  all  the  water 
that  is  poured  into  the  Mediterranean.  There 
must  be  a  hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

Last  night  we  sailed  by  my  first  real  live 
volcano.  It  was  Stromboli,  on  the  island  of 
that  name,  just  north  of  the  strait  separating 


THE  TIDELESS  SEA  19 

Italy  from  Sicily.  The  mountain  loomed  up 
a  dark  pyramid  in  a  blue  sky  with  the  moon 
shedding  a  silvery  light  on  the  surrounding 
waters.  Just  as  we  went  by,  old  Stromboli 
exerted  himself.  There  were  two  eruptions  of 
flame,  like  gigantic  flashes  of  exploded  gun- 
powder, followed  by  columns  of  smoke  which 
hardly  moved  in  the  gentle  breeze.  It  was 
impressive,  especially  as  I  remembered  that 
Stromboli  had  been  doing  the  same  stunt  ever 
since  the  old  Greeks  began  the  record  of  events. 
Occasionally  Stromboli  goes  on  a  rampage  and 
spreads  destruction  over  the  island.  There 
are  people  on  Stromboli,  and  those  who  escape 
from  one  disaster  come  back  and  try  it  again — 
just  why  people  do  so  is  as  much  a  mystery 
to  me  as  the  tide  and  the  disappearance  of  the 
water  in  the  Mediterranean. 

We  have  sailed  around  the  boot-shaped 
Italy,  and  are  now  among  the  islands  of  the 
Adriatic  sea  off  the  coast  of  Dalmatia.  This 
was  once  the  center  of  the  world's  commerce, 
when  Venice  was  the  great  power  in  the  Med- 
iterranean and  all  the  trade  between  western 
Europe    and    the    Orient    went    through    her 


20  THE  NEAR   EAST 

hands.  Every  island  has  been  fought  for  by 
Christian  and  Turk,  Venetian  and  Greek,  and 
nearly  every  one  has  its  ruined  castle,  a  re- 
minder of  the  good  old  days  when  the  knights 
went  forth  to  do  deeds  of  chivalry  and  mur- 
der, when  it  was  international  law  to  kill  a 
Mohammedan  on  sight,  and  when  there  was 
no  closed  season  on  Serbs.  This  afternoon  we 
will  reach  Trieste,  after  thirteen  days  of  easy 
sailing  without  missing  a  meal  or  throwing 
one  awaj^ 

And  this  is  quite  a  feat,  for  on  the  Franz 
Joseph  they  serve  six  meals  a  day,  three 
heavy  and  three  light. 

The  steerage  passengers  are  crowding  to  the 
rail,  for  they  are  returning  "home,"  a  place 
they  left  to  try  their  fortunes  in  a  new  and 
strange  world.  Tonight  they  will  be  telling 
stories  to  their  folks  of  the  strange  things  in 
America,  and  they  will  doubtless  swagger 
some  with  the  importance  of  having  traveled 
and  adventured  among  the  curious  people  of 
New  York.  Human  nature  is  a  good  deal  the 
same  in  Kansas  and  Dalmatia,  so  I  imagine 
that  the  wonders  of  America  will  not  grow 
less  as  they  are  told  in  the  Italian  language 


THE   TIDELESS   SEA  21 

to  the  admiring  family  and  friends.  Last 
night  the  band  i)layed  tlie  Star-Spangled  Ban- 
ner, and  while  the  i\.mericans  in  the  first  cabin 
made  the  usual  futile  effort  to  remember  the 
words  and  keep  up  with  the  tune,  the  return- 
ing foreigners  paid  a  tribute  of  applause  to  the 
hymn  of  the  land  of  Opportunity. 

This  is  no  place  for  a  young  man  or  young 
woman  to  come  who  is  afraid  of  sentiment. 
A  moonlight  night  on  the  Mediterranean 
would  extract  affection  from  a  statue.  The 
age  limit  would  need  to  be  high — higher  than 
I  have  heard  of.  A  bachelor  on  the  Franz 
Joseph  who  could  not  get  on  the  list  for  the 
maids  was  found  holding  his  own  hands,  with 
an  ecstatic  expression  in  his  eyes,  thinking  of 
some  one  far  away — perhaps  his  sister.  No 
wonder  the  old  Greek  gods  and  goddesses 
used  to  cut  up  when  they  played  around  the 
Grecian  archipelago  on  a  moonlight  night. 

This  is  the  road  to  the  East,  the  land  of 
dreams  and  memories.  Before  we  meet  the 
Serb  and  the  Bulgar  we  are  visiting  with  the 
ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  by  the  aid  of  the 
moonlight  and  the  waters. 


Austria-Hungary 


Trieste  of  New 

Trieste,  Aug.  13. 
Trieste  is  the  new  door  that  has  been  opened 
to  Americans  coming  to  Europe,  but  it  is  an 
old  door.  It  was  used  by  the  Romans  and  by 
Adriatic  commerce  for  many  years.  In  the 
last  century  it  has  grown  steadily  in  impor- 
tance, as  befits  the  only  port  of  Austria.  It  is 
an  Italian  city  as  well  as  Austrian,  for  four- 
fifths  of  the  300,000  population  are  Italians 
by  race  and  by  language.  Most  of  the  rest 
are  Slavs,  and  only  a  small  per  cent  are  real 
Austrians,  who  speak  the  German  language. 
Mixed  in  with  the  Italians,  Austrians  and 
Slavs  are  Albanians,  Bosnians,  and  representa- 
tives from  the  various  groups  in  the  Balkan 
peninsula.  All  of  which  makes  an  interesting 
aggregation  for  the  tourist,  although  a  little 
hard  for  the  police  to  handle.  The  incoming 
ships  bring  spices,  fruits,  coffee  and  cotton 
from  the  Levant,  and  take  back  manufactured 
goods,  sugar,  and  beer. 

(25) 


26  THE   NEAR  EAST 

The  town  lies  prettily  on  the  side  of  the 
mountains  which  rise  very  abruptly  from  the 
shore,  and  the  harbor  of  beautiful  Adriatic 
blue  is  filled  with  vessels  of  all  kinds,  includ- 
ing the  picturesque  sailing-boats  with  their 
yellow  and  blue  colored  sails.  Most  of  the 
city  is  modern,  with  fine  stone  and  marble 
business  blocks,  well-lighted  ways  and  street 
sprinklers.  But  the  old  town,  w^ith  its  narrow, 
path-like  "vias"  and  its  busy  shoplets,  is  a 
reminder  of  the  days  of  not  so  very  long  ago. 
The  automobile  is  here  and  the  auto  bus  is  in 
evidence.  But  much  of  the  hauling  through 
the  main  streets  of  the  city  is  by  oxen — big, 
fine  cream-colored  fellows  who  look  wonder- 
ingly  at  the  motor  car  that  has  come  to  set 
them  free.  In  the  railroad  yard  the  switch- 
ing is  done  by  oxen,  whose  union  seems  to 
keep  out  the  scab  motors.  The  various  folks 
and  colors  and  customs  which  I  have  thus 
hastily  sketched  make  a  delightful  picture,  and 
one  that  causes  Trieste  to  be  most  interesting 
to  the  traveler  from  another  world. 

The  imperial  chateau  of  Miramar  was  built 
here  about  sixty  years   ago  by  Maximilian, 


TRIESTE   OF   NEW  27 

younger  brother  of  the  Emperor,  who  was 
then  an  admiral  in  the  Austrian  navy.  It 
was  here  that  MaximiHan  accepted  the  job  of 
Emperor  of  Mexico  in  18G4.  At  that  time 
Uncle  Sam  had  trouble  in  his  own  household, 
and  at  one  of  the  customary  crises  in  Mexico, 
France  "intervened"  and  soon  had  its  soldiers 
in  possession  of  the  capital  and  large  cities  of 
the  republic.  The  Mexicans  were  told  to 
choose  an  emperor,  and  they  finally  unani- 
mously voted  for  Maximilian.  As  soon  as  he 
got  on  the  work  most  of  the  Mexicans  took  to 
the  brush  and  began  a  guerilla  war.  The 
United  States  pulled  the  Monroe  doctrine  on 
France  and  the  French  soldiers  went  home. 
Poor  Maximilian  and  his  wife  remained  and 
the  insurrection  grew.  Finally  the  insurrectos 
captured  the  emperor  and  shot  him — and  that 
ended  the  emperor  business. 

The  chateau  of  Miramar  is  a  beautiful  pal- 
ace on  the  shore  of  the  Adriatic.  One  of  the 
grand  duchesses  is  spending  the  summer  there, 
so  we  did  not  get  to  see  the  furniture,  which 
ordinarily  can  be  done  on  paj^ment  to  the 
government  of  an  admission  fee  of  twenty 
cents. 


28  THE  NEAR   EAST 

This  Austrian  money  is  interesting.  The 
unit  of  value  is  the  "krone,"  equivalent  to 
nearly  twenty  cents  American  money.  The 
krone  contains  100  hellers.  This  makes  you 
feel  rich.  You  pay  seventy-five  heller  for  a 
cheap  cigar.  You  hand  a  man  a  thousand 
heller  and  it  sounds  bigger  than  the  two  dol- 
lars, American,  which  it  represents.  When 
we  landed  from  the  ship  we  took  a  carriage, 
and  it  brought  three  passengers,  two  trunks 
and  a  lot  of  hand-baggage  to  the  hotel,  with 
a  stop  at  the  custom-house.  I  gave  the  driver 
an  American  dollar.  I  knew  it  was  wrong.  I 
knew  such  an  act  would  sap  the  foundations 
of  finance  in  cabdom.  But  I  was  glad  to  get 
on  land  once  more,  and  what  is  one  dollar  to 
a  Kansan  when  he  is  5,000  miles  from  home! 
The  next  day  we  wanted  to  drive  and  I  asked 
for  the  same  cabman,  only  to  be  told  that 
Pietro  What-ever-his-name-was  was  in  jail. 
He  had  gotten  drunk  and  left  his  horse  stand- 
ing on  the  street.  The  police  did  the  rest. 
But  I  knew  it  was  the  deadly  work  of  the 
American  dollar.  Pietro  could  not  stand 
prosperity. 

The  smallest  Austrian  coin  I  have  seen  is 


TRIESTE  OF  NEW  29 

the  onc-licllcr  piece.     It  is  worLli  a  fifth  of  an 
American  cent. 

The  working-women  keep  their  good  car- 
riage by  carrying  baskets  and  boxes  on  their 
heads.  They  do  not  do  this  for  mere  exercise, 
but  as  the  ancient  and  honorable  way  of  car- 
rying burdens.  You  can't  get  stoop-shoul- 
dered and  bent  over  with  a  basket  of  soik^d 
clothing  on  the  top  of  3'our  head.  The  women 
of  Trieste  are  very  pretty.  Of  course  I  would 
not  have  noticed  it,  but  the  American  vice- 
consul,  Mr.  De  Martini,  called  my  attention 
to  the  fact.  He  continued  with  his  informa- 
tion : 

"You  observe  that  when  j^ou  meet  a  girl 
on  the  street  and  she  smiles  and  you  smile,  she 
goes  on  and  never  looks  around  to  see  if  you 
are  following." 

I  admitted  that  I  had  noticed  this  and 
wondered  why. 

"Because  she  doesn't  need  to  look  around. 
She  knows  you  are  following." 

On  the  top  of  a  high  hill  overlooking  the 
town  and  the  sea  is  the  Cathedral.     A  couple 


30  THE  NEAR   EAST 

of  thousand  years  ago  the  Romans  had  a  tem- 
ple there,  and  some  of  the  old  masonry  and 
columns  were  used  in  the  construction  of  the 
present  new  church  in  the  14th  century.  In 
one  of  the  chapels  are  buried  all  the  kings  of 
the  older  branch  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons,  the 
*'Carlists."  For  several  generations  these 
kings  were  plotting  the  overthrow  of  the  reign- 
ing line,  and  kept  Spain  in  a  constant  turmoil. 
The  Pretender  who  is  on  deck  now  lives  over 
in  Venice,  a  hundred  miles  away,  has  married 
a  rich  wife,  and  is  preparing  to  get  Alfonso's 
goat  at  the  first  opportunity.  The  Spanish 
throne  is  a  good  deal  of  a  rocking-chair. 

That  reminds  me  of  the  fact  that  the  only 
rocking-chairs  I  ever  saw  in  Europe  are  in 
Austria,  except  one  that  an  American  consul 
had  had  made,  up  in  Sweden.  There  are  no 
rocking-chairs  in  England,  France,  or  Ger- 
many. They  are  considered  unhealthful  and 
impossible,  and  medical  authorities  in  those 
countries  claim  the  nervousness  of  Americans 
is  the  result  of  the  deadly  rocking-chair.  The 
consul  I  speak  of  came  from  Michigan,  and 
he   wanted   an   American   rocking-chair.     He 


TRIESTE  OF  NEW  31 

showed  the  cabinetmaker  how  to  construct 
one,  but  was  refused,  and  he  told  me  had  to 
use  his  official  position  to  get  authority  for 
the  man  to  make  a  rocking-chair. 

Of  course  the  importance  of  Trieste  is  as  a 
port,  although  it  is  a  good  town  to  live  in  and 
visit.  Last  year  the  imports  and  exports 
amounted  to  over  1,000,000,000  kronen,  which 
is  more  than  $200,000,000,  and  is  100,000,- 
000,000  heller.  The  Austrian  government 
builds  its  war-ships  here  and  keeps  a  large 
garrison  of  soldiers,  carefully  placing  Hun- 
garians and  Croatian  regiments  in  this  Italian 
city  and  sending  the  Trieste  soldiers  to  other 
places. 

There  was  an  election  of  a  mayor  here  yes- 
terday by  the  city  council.  The  councilmen 
were  chosen  by  the  people  last  June  in  an 
election  which  lasted  three  days,  and  during 
which  the  government  had  to  send  two  regi- 
ments of  state  police  from  the  country  to  aid 
in  maintaining  order.  An  election  in  an  Ital- 
ian community  is  never  apathetic.  In  fact, 
an  ordinary  street  conversation  in  Trieste 
would  be  almost  considered  a  riot  in  Kansas. 


Vienna  and  the  Viennese 

Vienna,  Aug.  17. 
Vienna  is  the  fourth  city  of  Europe  in  pop- 
ulation, the  other  three  being  London,  Paris, 
Berhn.  The  Viennese  boast  they  are  jolly 
and  gay,  and  they  are  always  proving  that 
theory  to  you.  When  one  starts  to  live  up 
to  a  reputation  like  that  it  really  makes  hard 
work  out  of  it,  and  that  is  the  way  it  seemed 
to  me  in  Vienna.  Being  "gay"  consists  in 
eating  and  drinking  and  staying  out  at  nights, 
and  making  oneself  believe  that  such  is  the 
great  aim  of  man.  So  the  city  of  Vienna  is 
filled  with  coffee-houses  and  drink-halls  and 
wine-gardens,  with  parks  and  trees  and  flowers 
as  a  universal  background.  It  is  a  beautiful 
city,  with  many  wide  streets,  clean  and  well 
paved,  and  with  handsome  buildings  both 
public  and  private.  Vienna  had  a  great  streak 
of  luck.  Up  to  about  sixty  years  ago  the 
"inner  town"  was  surrounded  by  fortifications 
like  a  big  wide  belt.     City  forts  went  out  of 

(32) 


VIENNA   AND   THE  VIENNESE  33 

fashion,  so  Vienna  pulled  down  the  walls, 
filled  up  the  moats  and  had  a  spacious  circle 
of  valuable  real  estate.  Part  of  this  land  was 
sold  and  the  proceeds  used  in  constructing  or- 
nate and  beautiful  public  buildings  and  pretty- 
parks  on  the  old  fortress  site.  Broad  avenues 
with  rows  of  trees  and  several  roadways  follow 
the  circular  line  and  constitute  the  "Ring," 
which  is  the  show  place,  the  promenade  and 
the  amusement  center  for  the  fun-loving  Vien- 
nese. 

Of  course  the  waltz  came  from  Vienna,  and 
it  is  the  movement  which  the  Viennese  feel, 
or  seem  to  feel,  in  their  daily  life.  But  the 
waltz  as  danced  in  its  home  town  would  not 
be  permitted  at  a  4th  of  July  picnic  in  Kansas. 
The  music  is  the  same  but  the  time  is  faster. 
The  Vienner  and  the  Vienness  grapple  each 
other  in  a  perfectly  proper  position  and  then 
they  begin  to  whirl.  They  do  not  reverse  any 
more  than  a  top.  They  waltz-me-around  at 
the  rate  of  130  revolutions  a  minute  until  ex- 
hausted. Even  then  they  do  not  reverse,  but 
get  their  breath  and  go  to  it  again.  A  whole 
evening  of  this  kind  of  fun  is  the  height  of 


34  THE  NEAR  EAST 

pleasure  for  these  unfortunate  people  who 
never  saw  a  turkey-trot.  They  do  hesitate 
long  enough  to  change  partners  and  drink 
beer,  but  these  are  coincident  necessities  of  the 
dance.  In  the  window  of  a  music  store  I  saw 
the  advertisement  of  "the  celebrated  Ameri- 
can dance  piece,"  "M.  Alexandre's  Tattered 
Time  Band,"  but  I  am  sure  no  Viennese  mu- 
sician would  play  it  unless  he  was  forced,  and 
I  know  no  Viennese  could  dance  to  it  if  he 
tried. 

The  Austrians  have  a  new  deal  on  their 
meal-times,  eating  the  big  dinner  at  1  o'clock 
and  supper  at  8  o'clock.  In  the  stores  and 
offices  two  hours'  time  is  usually  allowed  for 
the  midday  meal,  and  the  closing  in  the  even- 
ing is  at  seven.  Austrians  have  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  best  cooks  and  hotel  mana- 
gers in  Europe.  Next  to  Strauss,  who  wrote 
the  waltzes,  the  Viennese  most  honor  the  man 
who  makes  the  best  sauce.  When  an  Aus- 
trian sits  down  at  the  table  with  his  beer  or 
wine  in  front  of  him  and  the  menu  card  in  his 
hand,  he  looks  as  happy  and  expectant  as  a 
small  boy  at  a  circus.     To  an  American  who 


VIENNA   AND   THE  VIENNESE  35 

eats  at  a  lunch  counter,  or  who  hastily  gulps 
down  his  food  without  letting  go  of  his  busi- 
ness thoughts,  this  looks  like  a  wrong  object 
to  set  up  as  the  chief  one  in  life.  But  the 
Austrian  holds  in  great  contempt  the  foolish 
man  who  passes  up  the  enjoyment  of  a  meal 
with  sauces  and  desserts — and  perhaps  the 
Austrian  is  right.  There  is  more  dyspepsia 
and  stomach  trouble  from  a  rapid  fire  into 
one's  interior  of  pie  and  coffee,  than  there  is 
in  an  extended  and  artistic  application  of  food 
and  drink,  in  the  Teutonic  style. 

Of  course  everything  is  not  play,  even  in 
Vienna.  I  have  become  accustomed  to  seeing 
women  do  active  farm  work,  clean  the  street- 
crossings,  and  carry  the  burdens.  But  in  the 
construction  of  a  fine  new  building  on  the 
Ring,  just  across  the  street  from  the  beautiful 
Opera,  I  saw  many  women  engaged  in  mixing 
mortar,  laying  up  rock,  carrying  hods,  and 
otherwise  conducting  themselves  as  men.  This 
shocked  me.  I  made  a  few  remarks  to  them, 
but  they  did  not  seem  to  understand  my  lan- 
guage.    I  told  them  that  woman's  place  is  in 


36  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  home,  that  they  should  not  go  out  of  the 
sphere  in  which  they  rocked  the  cradle  to  rule 
the  world.  I  repeated  all  those  arguments, 
but  with  no  effect.  One  woman,  who  was  ex- 
cavating, stopped  shoveling  and  listened,  but 
a  big  fat  foreman  yelled  at  her  and  she  turned 
to  the  work. 

With  all  of  this  beautiful  Vienna  and  its 
churches  and  palaces  and  parks,  I  am  going 
to  have  to  remember  the  woman  working  with 
pick  and  shovel  for  which  she  is  paid  45  cents 
for  a  nine-hour  day. 

The  country  home  of  the  Emperor  Franz 
Joseph  is  at  Schoenbrunn.  The  emperor  was 
not  at  home  when  I  called,  but  I  looked  over 
the  place,  which  is  one  of  the  show-palaces  of 
Europe.  I  was  most  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  it  contains  1441  rooms  and  139  kitchens, 
from  which  you  can  see  it  is  bigger  than  a 
salt  plant.  It  has  a  beautiful  park,  with  gar- 
dens and  fountains,  but  in  all  of  that  splendor 
I  did  not  see  one  place  where  the  emperor 
could  sit  down  in  his  stocking-feet  and  rest 
himself — and  the  emperor  is  83  years  old  this 


"/  told  them  that  woman's  place  i.v  in  her  home. 


VIENNA  AND  THE  VIENNESE  37 

week.  I  am  often  impressed  with  the  seeming 
fact  that  royalty  has  a  lonesome  time.  In  the 
long  ago  a  king  could  at  least  have  a  man's 
head  cut  off,  or  boil  somebody  in  oil,  if  he  felt 
bad.  But  nowadays,  with  constitutions,  par- 
liaments and  other  modern  improvements,  a 
king  can't  even  sit  down  without  getting  the 
consent  of  his  ministry.  Once  in  a  while  a 
king  or  a  grand  duke  slips  off  and  has  a  good 
time  in  the  town,  but  he  is  terribly  talked 
about,  and  even  then  he  probably  never  really 
lets  loose,  because  he  can't  get  over  the  idea 
that  he  is  a  king.  The  female  Royalties  are 
in  just  as  hard  luck.  While  they  can  wear 
good  clothes  and  go  riding  in  the  park,  they 
can't  gossip  about  the  other  royal  families  for 
fear  of  international  complications,  and  when 
they  ride  there  are  two  men  up  behind  watch- 
ing to  see  at  whom  they  smile. 

The  imperial  palace  in  the  city  is  a  big, 
beautiful  building,  but  there  is  no  back  yard, 
absolutely  no  place  for  privacy,  if  you  are  an 
It,  unless  you  go  inside  and  lock  a  door.  As 
the  poet  says,  "What  is  home  without  a  back 
yard?"  Nothing  but  a  flat.  It  does  seem 
as  if  a  king  could  do  better  than  a  flat. 


38  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Vienna  is  an  old  town,  founded  by  the  Ro- 
mans, and  after  a  good  many  ups  and  downs 
developed  by  the  trade  between  the  west  of 
Europe  and  the  east,  which  was  started  by  the 
Crusades.  It  was  the  outpost  of  Christianity 
when  the  Turks  were  sweeping  into  Europe 
about  500  years  ago.  Twice  they  got  as  far 
as  Vienna,  and  then  the  Christians  stopped 
quarreling  among  themselves  and  beat  back 
the  Moslems.  It  is  the  capital  of  Austria, 
and  when  Austria  was  at  the  head  of  the  Ger- 
man empire  it  was  capital  of  that.  When  the 
German  em.pire  went  to  pieces  Prussia  crowded 
Austria  out  of  the  leadership,  and  in  the  re- 
organization froze  her  out  completely.  While 
Austria  is  the  original  German,  she  is  not  a 
part  of  the  present-day  Germany,  but  lan- 
guage, literature,  history  and  customs  are  as 
German  as  anybody.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Austrian  monarchy  is  made  up  of  a  number 
of  different  peoples.  Only  about  one-half  the 
people  of  Austria  are  Austrians.  The  rest  are 
Bohemians,  Slavs,  Ruthenians,  Poles,  Croa- 
tians,  etc.  This  does  not  include  Hungary, 
which  is  an  independent  kingdom  with  the 
same  monarch  as  Austria.     Nearly  all  these 


VIENNA  AND   THE  VIENNESE  39 

nationalities  are  represented  in  Vienna,  es- 
pecially on  great  occasions.  It  is  up  to  the 
Viennese  to  give  them  a  good  time  and  see 
that  they  take  home  no  unpleasant  notions  of 
their  capital  and  their  ruler.  So  the  Viennese 
have  built  beautifully  and  made  their  city  one 
of  the  playgrounds  of  Europe,  to  which  every- 
one is  welcome  so  long  as  his  money  holds  out. 


Down  the  Danube 

BuDA  Pesth,  Hungary,  Aug.  20. 
Up  to  the  time  of  railroads,  and  that  was 
not  very  long  ago,  the  Danube  river  was  the 
main  traveled  road  for  commerce  between 
western  Europe  and  that  part  of  the  Near 
East  comprised  in  most  of  the  Turkish  penin- 
sula, southern  Russia  and  the  great  fertile 
plains  of  eastern  Europe.  When  the  railroads 
came  they  followed  the  river  route,  and  a 
greater  trade  goes  up  and  down  the  valley 
than  ever.  The  Danube  is  still  a  busy  river, 
carrying  freight  and  passengers  back  and  forth 
in  even  larger  amounts  than  before.  It  has 
its  source  up  in  the  Black  Forest  of  Germany, 
and  by  the  time  it  crosses  into  Austria  it  is  a 
navigable  stream,  continuing  so  for  the  two 
thousand  miles  of  its  course  to  where  it  emp- 
ties into  the  Black  Sea.  It  goes  through 
mountains  of  metals  and  marble  and  traverses 
the  richest  plains  of  the  continent. 


(40) 


DOWN  THE  DANUBE  41 

Along  the  banks  of  the  Danube  the  old 
Romans  placed  their  outposts  and  called  ev- 
erything beyond  an  unknown  world.  The 
hordes  of  barbarians  which  came  in  successive 
waves  from  the  breeding-places  in  Asia,  fol- 
lowed the  Danube  until  they  left  it  to  over- 
whelm their  predecessors.  The  early  Chris- 
tian missionaries  carried  the  cross  up  and  down 
its  course,  so  that  it  was  a  boundary  for  Chris- 
tianity. AATien  the  Turks  came  to  Europe  and 
swept  the  eastern  Roman  empire  off  the  map, 
they  were  stopped  along  the  Danube,  and  for 
centuries  Christian  and  Moslem  disputed  as  to 
which  should  possess  the  great  river  and  its 
rich  valley.  Twice  the  Turks  got  across,  to  be 
met  by  a  united  Christendom  and  held  for 
downs.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  last  Turk- 
ish flag  on  the  Danube  was  lowered  at  Bel- 
grade, and  the  crescent  is  now  in  the  last  of 
the  European  possessions  which  it  has  held 
for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Every  mile  of 
the  Danube  river  has  been  fought  over,  and 
on  nearly  every  hill  are  the  ruins  of  a  castle 
which  once  held  the  forces  of  a  defender  of 
some  faith  and  a  captain  of  some  nationahty. 


42  THE  NEAR  EAST 

But  that  is  not  the  reason  I  came  down  the 
Danube,  which  I  did  yesterday  from  Vienna 
to  Buda  Pesth.  It  was  certainly  the  proper 
way  to  leave  the  West-European  civilization 
of  Austria  and  enter  the  semi-oriental  of  Hun- 
gary. But  I  wanted  to  waltz  down  the  Beau- 
tiful Blue  Danube  which  Mr.  Strauss  made 
famous,  and  that  was  why  we  embarked  on  a 
river  steamboat  for  three  hundred  miles  of 
travel.  I  am  in  favor  of  the  Danube  and  I 
am  an  admirer  of  Strauss.  I  have  waltzed 
17,000  miles  to  his  Blue  Danube  music.  But 
I  must  put  it  on  record  that  Mr.  Strauss  is  a 
beautiful  prevaricator  or  is  color-blind,  for  the 
Danube  river  is  the  shade  of  the  Missouri  river 
when  it  is  up.  It  would  be  just  as  correct  for 
the  Hutchinson  News  to  warble  hysterically 
about  the  Blue  Cow  Creek  as  it  was  for  the 
Viennese  composer  to  hang  those  remarkably 
touching  harmonies  onto  a  Blue  Danube.  I 
set  this  fact  down  with  a  sad  heart.  I  wanted 
to  ride  on  the  blue  Danube,  and  when  the 
stern  reality  came  to  me  that  the  Danube  was 
only  dirty  yellow  water  and  not  a  limpid 
stream,  it  was  certainly  discouraging  and  even 
exasperating. 


DOWN   THE   DANUBE  43 

I  felt  as  I  did  when  I  saw  the  Tiber,  where 
"Iloratius  held  the  bridge,"  and  realized  that 
any  good  man  could  jump  it  in  a  couple  of 
jumps.  I  suppose  the  Black  Sea  will  not  be 
black  and  that  the  Bulgarians  will  wear  sad 
sober  scarfs  and  blouses.  The  poets,  musi- 
cians and  fashion  leaders  take  too  much  li- 
cense for  a  plain  American  citizen  to  keep  up 
with. 

But  the  Danube  is  all  right  as  a  river,  re- 
gardless of  its  race,  color  or  previous  condition 
of  servitude.  Our  steamboat  made  twenty 
miles  an  hour  down-stream,  and  every  few 
minutes  we  passed  other  boats  or  met  a  tug 
with  a  half-dozen  barges  loaded  with  mer- 
chandise. 

One  of  the  things  I  never  get  used  to  is  the 
quick  passing  from  one  country,  people  and 
language  to  another.  On  leaving  Vienna  our 
crowd  was  nearly  all  Austrian,  speaking  Ger- 
man. In  a  couple  of  hours  most  of  them  had 
gotten  off  and  the  people  who  took  their  places 
were  different-looking  and  with  a  language  not 
as  much  like  German  as  is  the  English.     We 


44  THE  NEAR  EAST 

had  crossed  into  Hungary,  and  even  the  boat- 
men were  using  another  brand  of  profanity 
when  they  hit  a  dock  too  hard. 

Who  are  the  Hungarians?  They  are  no 
more  Germans  than  they  are  Indians.  Like 
most  of  the  people  of  Europe,  they  "came 
out  of  Asia"  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Christian  Era.  They  are  related  to  the  Tar- 
tars. They  took  their  turn  at  sweeping  across 
Europe,  and  were  stopped  by  the  Teutons 
after  they  had  overrun  eastern  Europe  and 
Italy.  They  were  nomadic,  wandering  fight- 
ers. When  they  struck  the  German  wall  they 
had  to  stop,  and  they  were  like  a  hive  of  bees. 
They  swarmed  in  the  rich  Danube  plain,  which 
thus  became  Hungary.  They  were  Christian- 
ized, but  their  fierce  tempers  were  not  sub- 
dued. They  are  noted  for  their  bravery,  their 
good  looks,  and  their  willingness  to  fight  every 
time  somebody  drops  a  hat,  or  oftener  if  con- 
venient. 

About  200  years  ago  the  law  of  descent 
worked  so  that  the  king  of  Austria  became 
the  king  of  Hungary,  and  since  that  time  the 
two  countries  have  had  the  same  monarch,  the 
present  Franz  Joseph  the  First  being  emperor 


DOWN  THE  DANUBE  45 

of  Austria  and  king  of  Hungary.  The  two 
countries  are  called  the  dual  monarchy.  But 
Hungary  is  independent,  having  its  own  capi- 
tal, parliament,  and  government.  The  two 
countries  have  the  same  department  of  foreign 
affairs  and  the  army  is  now  managed  as  prac- 
tically one  organization,  but  so  far  as  other 
matters  are  concerned  they  arc  not  connected. 
It  is  an  arrangement  which  has  been  tried  in 
other  countries  of  Europe  but  has  never 
worked  elsewhere.  Holland  and  Belgium  were 
hitched  together  for  a  few  years.  Norway 
and  Sweden  tried  a  partnership  under  one 
sovereign,  but  it  did  not  endure, — and  yet 
their  people  are  related.  The  Austrians  and 
Hungarians  are  of  different  race  and  nation- 
ality, and  they  have  held  togelhcr  for  200 
years,  although  there  have  been  several  nearly 
successful  attempts  to  kick  over  the  traces. 
The  Huns  are  a  liberty -loving  folk,  proud  and 
independent,  but  they  are  also  loyal  to  their 
king,  and  in  many  ways  they  are  the  mainstay 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy.  Prob- 
ably so  long  as  they  have  a  king  they  will 
stick  to  the  Hapsburg  family,  which  has  ruled 
them  so  long,  but  they  are  now  fitted  for  and 


46  THE  NEAR  EAST 

practically  have  self-government.  The  ques- 
tion is  how  long  they  will  let  the  force  of  habit 
prevail. 

From  the  boat  I  saw  fields  of  corn  such  as 
we  have  in  America,  the  first  I  ever  saw  in 
Europe.  Indian  corn  was  introduced  into  this 
country  by  the  government.  At  dinner  we 
had  "corn  on  the  cob,"  and  the  Hungarians 
ate  in  the  good  American  style,  burying  the 
face  in  the  corn  until  the  butter  ran  down  the 
sides  of  the  mouth.  Table  manners  are  much 
the  same  in  polite  society  the  world  over,  but 
there  are  often  local  peculiarities.  A  charm- 
ing Hungarian  lady  sat  opposite  to  me  at  the 
table.  She  consumed  the  corn,  washed  it 
down  with  a  glass  of  beer,  picked  her  teeth, 
and  lighted  a  cigarette.  None  of  these  would 
have  been  considered  proper  in  Kansas,  but 
they  are  the  correct  etiquette  in  Hungary. 
When  a  woman  can  eat  corn  on  the  cob,  drink 
beer,  pick  her  teeth  and  light  a  cigarette,  and 
still  look  charming,  it  is  proof  that  she  is 
pretty  and  attractive,  so  I  introduce  that  fact 
as  evidence  on  the  looks  of  the  lady  Huns. 

The  Hungarian  language  can  be  worshipped. 


DOWN  THE  DANUBE  47 


for  it  is  like  nothing  else  on  the  earth  or  in 
the  waters.  All  the  west-European  languages 
are  based  on  the  Latin  and  German  and  the 
printed  words  look  like  English.  But  the 
Hungarian  language  is  a  job  lot  of  consonants 
without  roots,  and  a  printed  line  looks  hke  a 
head-end  collision  between  two  freight  trains. 
Another  word  for  Hungarian  is  Magyar,  but 
that  doesn't  help  the  language.  Tliere  have 
been  great  ■  writers,  poets  and  musicians  in 
Hungary,  and  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world 
to  me  is  how  they  did  it  in  the  Magyar.  The 
folks  themselves  pronounce  their  words  rather 
softly,  but  when  an  American  makes  the  at- 
tempt you  think  he  is  practicing  for  a  swear- 
ing match. 

All  day  and  into  the  night  we  came  down 
the  river,  and  stopping  at  places  with  names 
like  Esztergom,  Vacz,  Szekesfehrvar,  Piszke, 
Svab-Hegy.  It  always  seemed  to  me  that 
there  was  danger  of  the  boat  striking  one  of 
these  names  and  sinking  at  once.  Then  out 
of  the  moonlight  and  under  big  bridges  into 
the  electric  light  and  beside  the  high  buildings 
of  Buda  Pesth. 


The  Capital  of  the  Magyars 

BuDA  Pesth,  Hungary,  Aug.  21. 
For  two  thousand  years  there  was  a  town 
called  Buda  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Danube, 
and  for  800  years  a  town  called  Pesth  on  the 
left  bank.  In  1872  they  were  united  under 
the  name  of  Buda  Pesth,  or  as  they  put  it, 
Budapest.  About  the  year  1250  Buda  became 
the  capital  of  Hungary,  and  was  such  until 
300  years  later,  when  the  Turks  captured  it 
and  held  it  for  150  years.  Then  there  were 
various  capitals,  and  when  the  Huns  and  Aus- 
trians  finally  got  together  the  old  town  of 
Buda  was  united  to  the  new  town  of  Pesth, 
only  800  years  old,  and  Buda  Pesth  was  made 
the  capital.  The  parliament  house,  in  Hun- 
garian the  "Orszaghaz,"  is  one  of  the  beauti- 
ful buildings  of  Europe  and  the  royal  palace 
on  the  Buda  side  is  another.  The  Pesth  side 
of  the  city  has  grown  most,  because  it  is  flat 
and  easy  to  build  on,  while  Buda  lies  on  the 
side  of  a  small  mountain  which  begins  at  the 

(48) 


THE   CAPITAL  OF  THE  MAGYARS  49 

river's  edge.  The  buildings  are  largely  of 
oriental  architecture,  with  domes  and  turrets, 
and  even  an  ordinary  store  building  will  have 
a  marble  front  and  the  exterior  decorated  in 
figures  and  colors.  This  combination  of  river, 
mountain  and  valley,  with  the  art  of  man 
making  his  handiwork  as  fair  to  look  upon  as 
possible,  results  in  Buda  Pesth  being  one  of 
the  beautiful  cities  of  the  world.  It  has  many 
parks  and  squares,  with  trees  and  flowers  and 
broad  avenues,  and  its  million  population  cer- 
tainly have  a  delightful  place  in  which  to  live. 
It  is  too  bad  that  the  elegant  new  palace  has 
no  one  in  permanent  residence,  for  the  king 
comes  to  Buda  Pesth  only  when  he  must,  but 
there  is  a  university  with  7,000  students,  and 
that  is  better  for  a  town  than  a  handful  of 
kings. 

When  we  crossed  the  line  from  Austria  even 
the  music  changed.  The  waltz  gave  way  to 
the  rather  rhapsodical  and  often  weird  strains 
of  Hungary.  There  is  music  here  everywhere, 
and  the  very  best, — the  kind  that  draws  down 
big  money  in  Europe  and  America.  If  the 
Gipsies  have  a  native  land  it  is  Hungary  and 


50  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  little  country  of  Roumania,  farther  down 
the  Danube.  The  Gipsies  are  not  Hungari- 
ans. They  are  a  separate  and  peculiar  people 
who  dwell  in  Hungary,  and  who  are  often 
found  roving  in  other  countries.  They  are  a 
little  hard  for  the  authorities  to  handle,  as 
they  have  no  names  and  no  habitation.  A 
king  of  Hungary  became  a  student  of  Gipsy 
history  and  character.  He  went  among  a 
band  of  them  and  learned  to  love  them.  He 
took  a  large  estate  and  gave  it  to  them,  with 
houses,  cattle,  and  all  that  they  might  need. 
They  stuck  it  out  a  few  days  and  then  they 
disappeared  with  everything  not  nailed  down. 
Houses  and  homes  and  regular  life  have  no 
charm  for  the  Gipsies.  They  own  no  real  es- 
tate, they  appeal  to  no  courts.  They  have 
their  own  laws  and  rulers,  and  thus  we  have 
the  curious  spectacle  of  one  nation  living  in- 
side of  another.  The  government  holds  them 
responsible  for  crimes  against  others,  but  can- 
not make  them  submit  to  regulations  among 
themselves.  They  escape  the  required  army 
service  because  there  is  no  record  of  their 
births  or  marriages,  or  of  names  and  ages. 
They  are  horse-traders  and  fortune-tellers,  and 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  MAGYARS  51 

are  accused  of  being  oblivious  to  the  so-called 
rights  of  property.  They  are  not  vicious,  but 
they  are  not  considered  desirable  neighbors  by 
the  industrious  and  thrifty  Huns.  All  of  these 
Gipsies  are  musicians,  and  they  supply  the 
great  musical  element  in  Hungarian  music. 
They  also  furnish  orchestras  which  play  in 
the  hotels,  cafes  and  parks  and  make  every 
evening  a  great  concert.  Of  course  they  do 
not  confine  themselves  entirely  to  their  own 
compositions.  At  a  concert  on  Margaret's 
Island,  which  is  a  great  public  park  on  the 
Danube,  the  splendid  band  got  the  most  ap- 
plause for  a  spirited  rendition  of  "The  Rag 
Time  Violin,"  which  I  fear  was  considered  by 
most  of  the  audience  the  American  national 
anthem  and  was  approved  on  that  account. 

On  the  Pesth  side  of  the  river-front  is 
Franz  Joseph  Quai,  a  promenade  a  mile  long, 
a  fine  avenue  with  the  Danube  on  one  side 
and  a  row  of  handsome  hotels  with  outdoor 
cafes  on  the  other.  No  vehicles  are  allowed 
on  this  boulevard,  and  every  evening  from  5 
o'clock  on  to  a  late  hour  it  is  the  promenade 
upon  which  the  Huns  and  the  Hunnesses  show- 


52  THE  NEAR  EAST 

their  good  clothes  and  how  well  they  wear 
them.  For  the  price  of  a  cup  of  coffee,  six 
American  cents,  or  a  glass  of  beer,  two  Ameri- 
can cents,  one  can  sit  comfortably  at  a  little 
table  and  watch  the  Danube  and  anything  else 
that  comes  along.  Across  the  half-mile  of 
water  looms  the  height  of  Buda  with  old  cas- 
tles and  new  castles,  parks  and  homes.  Down 
the  promenade  march  the  latest  gowns  from 
Paris,  with  all  the  sights  that  they  can  con- 
tribute to  the  aggregation  of  the  beautiful. 
Occasionally  a  peasant  woman,  with  bright 
colors  and  high  skirts  and  ankles  clothed  in 
heavy  socks,  adds  variety  to  the  passing  show. 
These  are  out-of-door  people  who  love  to  be 
in  the  sunlight  or  the  electric  light,  and  who 
don't  mind  being  observed  if  they  are  sure 
their  hats  are  on  straight.  They  are  so  much 
like  Americans  that  I  wonder  if  we  are  not 
part  Tartar  ourselves. 

The  rule  of  the  road  in  this  country  is  to 
go  to  the  left.  I  had  not  known  that  until 
we  started  for  a  drive  in  a  one-horse  carriage 
which  goes  slow  enough  so  you  can  see  the 
sights.     An  automobile  came  whizzing  toward 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  TTIE  MAGYARS  53 

US,  and  as  we  were  about  to  meet,  our  driver 
turned  sharply  to  the  left.  I  shut  my  eyes 
and  wondered  just  how  the  sad  news  would 
get  to  America.  But  nothing  happened.  The 
auto  had,  of  course,  also  turned  to  the  left. 
Another  new  custom  has  been  sprung  on  me 
in  this  country,  beginning  in  Vienna.  I  got 
on  a  street  car  and  gave  the  conductor  the 
fare  he  mentioned.  He  held  out  his  hand  and 
said  something  I  could  not  understand.  I 
looked  pleasant  and  said  "Yawohl,"  which 
generally  answers  anything  in  German.  But 
the  conductor  did  not  yawohl.  His  mit  was 
still  extended  and  I  knew  it  must  be  money. 
I  gave  him  a  ten-heller  piece  and  he  took  off 
his  cap.  I  ought  to  have  given  him  two  hel- 
lers (two-fifths  of  a  cent)  and  then  he  would 
have  merely  touched  his  cap.  He  gets  his 
pay  from  the  tips.  No  wonder  street-car  fare 
is  usually  about  three  cents.  But  I  don't  Hke 
to  see  a  man  take  off  his  hat  to  another  for 
ten  heller,  even  if  that  is  the  equivalent  of 
two  American  cents. 

Buda  Pesth  occupies  about  the  same  posi- 
tion commercially  to  the  Balkan  states  that 


54  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Kansas  City  does  to  Kansas  and  Oklahoma. 
A  wholesale  merchant  assured  me  that  all  the 
gay -colored  Bulgarian  blouses  and  scarfs  that 
we  see  in  America,  if  they  come  from  Europe 
at  all,  are  made  in  Hungary  and  shipped  from 
Buda  Pesth.  I  think  he  is  correct.  This 
v/orld  is  getting  so  close  together  that  it  is 
easier  to  buy  Japanese  goods  from  Connecti- 
cut manufacturers  than  it  is  to  order  from 
Japan — and  you  get  better  stuff.  Once  when 
I  was  in  Germany  I  was  trying  to  buy  a  char- 
acteristic German  picture.  After  quite  a 
search  I  succeeded  in  getting  something  that 
w^as  genuinely  Germ.an,  only  to  discover  when 
I  examined  it  later  at  the  hotel  that  it  was 
"made  in  Buffalo,  U.  S.  A."  The  Hungarians 
have  the  oriental  taste  for  colors.  Their  fur- 
nishings and  their  decorations  are  bright  reds 
and  blues.  They  retain  the  old  dashing  ways 
of  the  Magyar,  and  with  their  good  physique 
and  dark  complexions  are  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting peoples  of  the  Near  East. 


Yienna. 


OUTLINE  MAP  OF  TIUKKY,  GREECE,  -VXD  THE  BALKAN  STATES, 
WITH  THE  NEW  BOUNDARIES 


Those  Balkan  States 


Into  the  Balkans 

Belgrade,  Servia,  Aug.  23. 
Getting  into  the  Balkans  is  a  sort  of  com- 
bination of  stern  reality  with  comic  opera. 
Coming  from  Hungary  we  crossed  the  bound- 
ary between  that  country  and  Servia  just  this 
side  of  the  town  Zimony,  after  a  full  realiza- 
tion of  the  fact  that  Austria  and  Servia  are 
not  friendly.  At  Zimony  we  were  ordered  out 
of  our  comfortable  second-class  coach  and  into 
the  police  headquarters,  which  are  at  one  side 
of  the  waiting-room.  Everybody  going  across 
the  line,  no  matter  what  his  nationality  or 
condition,  had  to  have  a  passport  to  leave 
Austria-Hungary.  Even  a  Hungarian  going 
to  Belgrade  on  business,  or  a  Servian  return- 
ing from  a  visit  with  his  friends  in  Zimony, 
must  produce  for  examination  the  document 
which  entitles  him  to  pass  the  boundary.  I 
got  into  a  line  of  about  fifty  people  of  all  sorts 
and  of  all  degrees  of  cleanliness.  Then  I  took 
my   turn   until   I   reached   the   window   and 

(57) 


58  THE  NEAR  EAST 

handed  through  the  paper,  which  looked  hke 
a  quitclaim  deed  but  was  in  reality  a  signed 
and  sealed  statement  made  by  W.  J.  Bryan, 
Secretary  of  State,  that  I  am  an  American 
citizen  of  good  character  and  entitled  to  con- 
sideration as  such.  The  document  further 
gives  the  interesting  details  of  my  height,  my 
age,  the  color  of  my  eyes  and  hair,  and  other 
information  which  might  come  in  handy  to 
the  police  in  case  I  turned  out  bad  or  had  to 
be  located  later  on.  The  Austrian  officer,  who 
looked  like  a  Knight  Templar  in  dress  uni- 
form, scanned  my  papers  carefully.  I  knew 
he  couldn't  read  a  word  of  English,  but  he 
acted  as  if  he  did,  even  to  turning  the  paper 
over  and  examining  the  other  side.  It  seemed 
to  me  as  if  he  were  hunting  an  excuse  to  keep 
us  in  his  country.  I  did  not  help.  I  talked 
English,  which  was  just  the  same  to  him  as 
parrot  talk.  Finally  he  had  to  ask,  "Namen?" 
and  then  I  pointed  to  my  own  name  on  the 
proper  line.  He  was  evidently  relieved,  but 
he  sighed  and  looked  distressed.  I  volun- 
teered "mit  frau"  and  that  helped  him  some. 
He  wrote  what  I  supposed  to  be  the  name  in 


INTO   THE  BALKAXS  59 

Hungarian  and  gave  up  the  rest,  but  he  never 
admitted  it.  A  seal  was  stamped  on  the  paper 
and  it  was  handed  back  along  with  a  fine  line 
of  Hungarian  language  to  which  I  carelessly 
responded  (in  English)  that  this  was  a  blamed 
fool  country  and  that  he  acted  like  a  chump. 
I  think  he  said  "Thank  you"  in  Hungarian; 
at  least  he  saluted  and  smiled. 

I  had  the  right  now  to  leave  Austria-Hun- 
gary if  I  could.  We  were  eight  miles  from 
Belgrade,  and  by  signs  and  German  words  we 
were  made  to  understand  that  the  rest  of  the 
trip  must  be  made  in  a  third-class  coach,  some- 
thing like  a  street  car  with  wooden  seats  and 
no  upholstering.  This  car  had  been  sprayed 
with  carbolic  acid  until  its  odor  was  that  of  a 
charity  ward  in  a  public  hospital.  All  passen- 
gers of  all  classes  had  to  complete  their  jour- 
ney in  this  carbolic  coach  because  there  was 
cholera  in  Servia.  Just  why  we  should  be 
thus  protected  when  going  into  Servia  I  could 
not  understand,  except  that  it  was  so  ordered 
by  the  Austrian  government.  At  any  rate  it 
made  one  know  he  was  going  across  a  bound- 
ary when  he  was  packed  into  this  car  with  a 


60  THE   NEAR   EAST 

lot  of  folks  he  couldn't  understand  and  with 
the  sweet  smell  of  carbolic  acid  as  a  sort  of 
welcome. 

The  Servian  oflScer  who  received  us  also 
read  my  passport.  In  German  he  asked  my 
business,  and  when  I  explained  that  I  was  a 
"journalist"  he  trembled  and  looked  me  over 
to  see  if  I  were  not  an  Austrian  or  Bulgarian 
come  to  tell  stories  about  Servia.  But  he  was 
reassured  when  I  pointed  out  that  I  was 
"Amerikanish,"  and  evidently  felt  better.  At 
any  rate  he  let  us  proceed,  and  we  were  on 
Balkan  soil,  carbolicacidized  and  wondering, 
but  triumphant.  An  English-speaking  hotel 
interpreter  came  to  our  relief  and  we  were  soon 
in  a  fourth-story  room  in  the  Hotel  Moskau. 

We  had  not  wanted  to  go  so  high  up  in  a 
hotel  where,  in  case  of  fire  and  not  knowing 
the  language,  it  might  be  difficult  to  get  out. 
But  our  interpreter  had  disappeared  and  the 
debate  was  with  the  porter,  who  could  only 
answer  objections  by  the  word  "Lift,"  which 
is  the  Anglo  for  elevator.  He  uttered  that 
word  w^ith  pride  and  a  swelling  of  the  chest 
which  showed  that  it  was  an  argument  that 


INTO  THE  BALKANS  61 

answered  any  objection,  and  we  gave  up.  The 
"Lift"  carried  two  persons  at  a  time.  The 
porter  put  us  in  the  cage,  shut  the  door, 
pushed  a  button,  and  off  we  went  four  stories 
high  in  Servia  without  even  an  elevator  boy 
to  guide  us.  But  the  Lift  stopped  at  the 
right  place,  and  the  porter,  who  had  walked 
up  the  stairs,  let  us  out, — and  we  took  the 
room. 

By  this  time  I  had  also  managed  to  get  some 
Austrian  money  exchanged  for  Servian  money 
and  I  felt  safe.  No  matter  what  country  you 
are  in  or  what  language  is  spoken,  the  truth 
is  that  "money  talks."  Take  a  handful  of 
coin  out  of  your  pocket  and  the  party  ad- 
dressed will  make  strenuous  and  usually  suc- 
cessful efforts  to  get  some  of  it.  With  a 
pocketful  of  Servian  silver  and  lead  and  a 
short  but  practical  vocabulary  of  German  I 
have  been  made  to  feel  at  home  in  Belgrade 
and  everybody  has  been  kind  and  helpful. 
The  Servian  language  is  different  from  all 
others,  although  it  is  related  to  the  Russian, 
the  Greek,  the  Sanskrit,  and,  I  think,  the 
Choctaw.     But  it  is  a  good-enough  language 


62  THE  NEAR  EAST 

for  the  Servians,  and  so  long  as  they  can 
stand  it  I  do  not  know  that  an  American 
tourist  has  any  right  to  kick. 

Belgrade  is  the  capital  of  Servia  and  has 
about  80,000  population.  It  is  beautifully 
located  on  a  peninsula  formed  by  the  Danube 
and  the  Save  rivers,  which  is  a  hill  rising 
steeply  about  two  hundred  feet  above  the 
river-banks.  At  the  end  of  the  peninsula  is 
the  fortress  which  for  centuries  was  the  north- 
ern outpost  of  the  Turks,  after  they  had  been 
driven  out  of  Hungary  and  across  the  Danube. 
Even  after  the  Servians  had  become  virtually 
independent  the  Turkish  garrison  and  the 
Turkish  flag  in  the  impregnable  castle  were 
the  signs  of  sovereignty  until  about  forty  years 
ago,  when  the  Servians  surprised  the  Turkish 
commander,  killed  the  Turkish  soldiers  and 
hoisted  their  own  flag.  The  Sultan  appealed 
to  the  powers  of  Europe  as  to  what  he  should 
do  in  this  emergency,  but  they  could  only 
tell  him  to  take  the  medicine.  The  Turkish 
Crescent  disappeared  from  the  Danube  over 
which  it  had  waved  so  long,  and  began  its 
march  out  of  Europe,  now  so  nearly  completed. 


INTO  THE  BALKANS  63 

Under  the  centuries  of  Turkish  domination 
Belgrade  was  only  a  fort,  and  the  town  was 
not  much.  When  the  Servians  made  it  their 
capital  in  the  last  century  it  began  to  grow, 
and  now  it  is  booming  like  a  town  in  western 
Kansas.  There  is  the  strange  mixture  of  the 
INIoslem  and  the  Christian,  the  minaret  of  the 
mosque  and  the  cross  of  the  Greek  Catholics. 
Little  narrow  streets  with  one-story  houses, 
the  remnants  of  the  days  gone  by,  are  side  by 
side  with  fairly  good-sized  buildings  in  Eu- 
ropean style  on  broad  avenues.  Nearly  all 
the  hauling  is  by  oxen  and  small  horses,  but 
there  are  a  half-dozen  or  more  automobiles 
on  the  roughly  paved  streets.  Electric  lights 
and  candles  are  both  used,  and  the  picturesque 
garb  of  the  Servian  peasant  is  about  equally 
in  evidence  with  the  European  clothes  modeled 
on  those  in  Paris  and  London.  There  are 
"boomers"  in  Belgrade,  and  there  are  doubt- 
less those  who  regret  the  vanishing  of  the 
good  old  ways.  Last  and  crowning  evidence 
of  Western  civilization  is  a  sewer  system  which 
has  been  begun  and  will  take  the  place  of 
nature's  means  of  cleansing  a  city,  by  the  use 
of  tlie  streets  and  the  rays  of  the  sun. 


64  THE  NEAR  EAST 

In  our  hotel  there  is  not  only  a  "lift"  but 
a  bath-room,  not  a  "room  with  bath,"  but  a 
real  bath-room.  It  was  advertised  on  the 
stationery,  and  we  decided  that  this  would  be 
a  good  opportunity  to  remove  the  dirt  of 
travel  and  the  odor  of  the  carbolic  acid.  So 
the  order  for  a  hot  bath  was  given,  but  it  was 
too  late  for  today.  The  water  is  heated  by  a 
porcelain  wood-burning  stove  with  a  boiler  on 
top,  occupying  a  corner  of  the  bath-room.  An 
hour's  time  is  required  to  heat  the  water,  and 
this  can  only  be  accomplished  on  notice  dur- 
ing the  day.  The  hotel  force  was  sad,  but 
unable  to  cope  with  the  situation.  All  that 
could  be  done  was  to  accept  the  assurance 
that  tomorrow  a  fire  will  be  made  and  the 
water  heated  and  a  bath  "arranged."  So  far 
as  tonight  is  concerned  a  bath  in  a  washbowl 
is  sufficient  for  us,  as  it  was  for  Servians  for 
centuries, — and  is  yet,  so  far  as  any  evidence 
that  we  can  find  on  inspection  of  the  subject 
and  the  Serbs. 

But  Belgrade  is  marching  on.  The  Servians 
have  licked  the  Turks  and  the  Bulgarians. 
Next  they  will  have  bathtubs,  and  then  they 
will  be  redeemed  but  uninteresting. 


The  Balkan  Powder  Box 

Belgrade,  Servia,  Aug.  25. 

In  order  to  understand  the  conditions,  likes 
and  dislikes  in  what  is  known  as  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  it  is  necessary  to  know  a  little  of 
history.  There  are  four  separate  and  inde- 
pendent countries  besides  Greece  and  Turkey, 
and  a  new  nation  now  being  formed  under  the 
direction  of  the  Powers.  These  four  countries 
are  Servia,  Montenegro,  Bulgaria,  and  llou- 
mania ;  and  on  the  map  a  generation  ago  they 
were  part  of  "Turkey  in  Europe."  In  addi- 
tion to  these  there  is  Bosnia-IIcrzegovina,  a 
large  chunk  of  the  old  Turkey  which  was 
gobbled  five  years  ago  by  Austria-Hungary, 
and  whose  people  are  related  to  the  Servians. 
These  little  countries  are  alike  in  religion  and 
in  race,  with  such  differences  as  might  be  ex- 
pected to  arise  during  a  thousand  years  of 
warfare,  the  last  five  hundred  under  the  domi- 
nation of  the  Turk. 

Before  the  Christian  Era  very  little  is  known 

(05) 


66  THE    NEAR  EAST 

of  the  people  in  tins  peninsula.  They  were 
barbarians  according  to  Greek  standards,  and 
were  held  as  conquered  by  the  Romans.  The 
Romans  ordinarily  did  not  change  the  native 
customs  or  religion  or  blood  in  the  provinces 
which  they  annexed  to  the  republic  and  the 
later  empire.  Only  in  the  present  Roumania 
is  there  evidence  of  the  Roman  rule,  and  the 
people  of  that  country  trace  their  lineage  with 
more  or  less  correctness  back  to  Roman  col- 
onists who  mixed  up  with  the  natives,  and 
were  afterward  run  over  by  Huns,  Tartars, 
Goths  and  Slavs,  but  influenced  their  conquer- 
ors more  than  they  were  influenced  by  them. 
About  the  6th  century  the  Slavs  came  out  of 
southern  Russia,  and  their  descendants  are 
the  Servians.  Another  lot  of  Slavs  who  called 
themselves  Bulgars  conquered  part  of  the  orig- 
inal Slavs  and  occupied  about  what  is  now 
Bulgaria.  Montenegro  was  formed  by  Ser- 
vians who  fled  from  Turkish  rule  to  the  barren 
mountains  near  the  Dalmatian  coast,  and  who 
never  did  give  up  to  the  Turks.  All  of  these 
people  were  Christianized  by  Greek  Catholic 
missionaries,  and  are  of  practically  the  same 
religion  as  Russia  and  Greece.   All  of  them  are 


THE   BALKAN   POWDER  BOX  T)? 

related  by  race  to  the  Slavs  of  Russia.  All  of 
them  have  always  hated  the  Moslem,  the  Ro- 
man Catholic,  and  each  other.  At  any  time 
during  Turkisli  rule  they  could  have  thrown 
off  the  yoke  if  thcj'  had  been  willing  to  unite. 
They  did  work  it  off  in  the  last  century  by  the 
aid  of  Russia  and  the  Powers  and  by  the  paral- 
ysis that  came  upon  Turkey.  Last  year  they 
united  to  take  from  the  Sultan  that  part  of 
Turkey  inhabited  by  Slavs  and  Greeks.  They 
defeated  the  Turkish  armies,  captured  the  de- 
sired territory,  and  then  fought  a  fiercer  and 
bloodier  war  among  themselves  over  a  division 
of  the  spoils  and  out  of  the  real  hatred  which 
they  bore  each  other.  It  was  a  war  in  which 
they  gouged  out  eyes,  cut  off  ears  and  other- 
wise mutilated  the  enemy,  and  while  most  of 
the  atrocities  may  have  been  committed  by 
one  side,  the  other  was  at  least  revengeful  in 
kind.  In  fact,  these  Christians  made  the 
Turks  seem  respectable,  and  no  doubt  the 
]\Ioslem  soldiers  are  blushing  with  shame  over 
their  inferiority  in  cruelty  to  the  Christians 
when  they  had  a  chance. 

In  fact,  the  Christians  of  this  peninsula  are 
a  poor  imitation  of  the  real  article,  much  of 


68  THE  NEAR  EAST 


their  religion  being  superstition  handed  down 
from  the  old  pagan  time.  They  never  were 
"converted"  except  by  force,  and  they  never 
learned  to  act  like  Christians  as  we  understand 
the  word.  For  centuries  the  Turks  had  tKe 
only  real  religion  in  the  peninsula,  and  the 
Christians  over  whose  servitude  oceans  of  tears 
have  been  shed  were  quarrehng  over  doctrine 
and  killing  each  other  for  the  love  of  God. 
The  Turks  and  the  Balkan  Christians  never 
got  out  of  the  old  ruts.  In  England  and  Amer- 
ica our  forefathers  burned  Quakers  only  300 
years  ago.  In  England  Protestants  and  Cath- 
olics considered  it  a  glorious  act  to  convert  or 
kill  a  heretic,  probably  better  to  kill — and  that 
was  less  than  400  years  ago.  The  Turks  and 
Balkaners  did  not  progress  until  the  last  gen- 
eration, and  they  are  not  yet  over  the  old  ways. 

But  the  Balkans  are  progressing  rapidly, 
and  in  a  few  years  there  will  be  better  thought 
and  better  religion.  Here  in  Servia  it  seems 
to  me  the  change  has  already  come.  Of  course 
the  Servians  say  they  are  the  best  of  the  Bal- 
kan people.  They  may  be.  At  any  rate  they 
arc  getting  up  to  date.     Their  pride  is  aroused 


THE  BALKAN  POWDER   BOX  69 

to  make  Servia  one  of  the  modern  states  of 
Europe,  and  they  are  doing  it  rapidly.  The 
school  teacher  is  abroad  in  the  land,  and  that 
means  good-by  to  superstition,  brutality,  and 
dirt.  This  is  a  democratic  country.  It  is 
true  that  Servia  has  a  king,  but  that  is  con- 
sidered a  necessity  in  order  to  stand  in  with 
Russia  and  the  Powers  of  Europe.  But  there 
are  no  earls  or  dukes  or  nobles.  There  are 
no  titles  and  no  rich  landlords.  The  people 
come  nearer  to  running  their  own  affairs  in 
Servia  than  they  do  in  New  York.  The  Skup- 
tishina,  which  is  their  word  for  congress,  is 
elected  by  the  people,  and  what  it  says  will  go, 
whether  the  king  wants  it  or  not.  Of  course 
the  party  in  power  has  gerrymandered  the  dis- 
tricts just  as  they  do  in  Missouri.  The  objec- 
tion is  raised  that  there  are  too  many  politi- 
cians in  Servia.  That  is  poor  talk.  Every 
man  ought  to  be  a  politician,  whether  he  lives 
in  Servia  or  Kansas,  and  not  let  somebody  do 
the  governing  for  him  and  then  kick  on  the 
result.  Politics  in  the  Balkans  is  really  inter- 
national in  character.  These  little  countries 
have  been  rescued  from  the  Turks  by  the 
Powers  of  Europe  directly  or  indirectly,  and 


70  THE  NEAR   EAST 

every  move  on  the  European  checkerboard  is 
regarded  with  personal  interest  because  it  will 
probably  affect  them.  The  political  parties 
in  Servia  have  been  pro-Russian  and  pro-Aus- 
trian. In  recent  years  the  Austrian  side  has 
nearly  disappeared  because  the  Austrians  have 
become  friends  with  the  Bulgarians.  Austria 
is  the  neighbor  and  best  customer  of  Servia, 
but  the  two  countries  expect  to  clash  sometime 
over  Bosnia  or  southern  Hungary,  where  the 
Slav  population  is  large.  Russia  controls  the 
international  politics  of  Servia,  Montenegro, 
and  Roumania.  The  Powers  of  Europe  are 
divided  into  two  sides :  England,  France  and 
Russia  against  Austria,  Germany  and  Italy. 
With  a  knowledge  that  there  is  such  a  mix- 
ture of  race,  religion,  politics  and  self-interest 
in  these  Balkan  states,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
why  they  have  been  called  the  "Powder  Box 
of  Europe."  A  little  scrap  between  Servia  and 
Bulgaria  might  involve  Austria  and  Russia 
with  their  respective  allies  in  a  big  war.  Dur- 
ing the  last  year  Austria  has  had  200,000  sol- 
diers mobilized  on  the  Balkan  boundary,  and 
Russia  has  been  in  almost  as  warlike  attitude. 
They  had  to  do  this  because  they  could  not 


THE  BALKAN  POWDER  BOX  71 

tell  what  might  happen.  It  costs  millions  of 
money  and  a  great  loss  in  production  to  put 
such  armies  in  the  field,  even  if  there  is  no 
fight. 

Right  now  every  one  says  there  will  be 
another  war  between  Bulgaria  and  Servia 
within  five  years.  In  the  country  recently 
taken  from  the  Turks,  where  Serbs  and  Bul- 
gars  reside  in  large  numbers,  there  will  be 
continuous  strife,  and  in  fact  guerilla  warfare 
between  the  factions  is  going  on  now,  with 
small  prospect  of  coming  to  an  end.  So  far 
as  I  have  heard  no  one  in  the  Balkans  is  try- 
ing to  stop  the  fight  or  to  prevent  the  coming 
war,  for  everybody  realizes  that  unless  the 
nature  of  the  Serb  and  the  Bulgar  has  a  radi- 
cal change  they  would  prefer  a  fight  to  a  feast. 

The  people  of  these  states  have  for  centu- 
ries been  under  the  corrupt  domination  of  the 
Turk.  He  did  not  try  to  change  their  relig- 
ion, but  preferred  that  they  stay  Christian. 
In  fact,  the  Turk  was  about  the  first  nation- 
ality to  permit  practical  freedom  of  worship. 
But  the  Turk  did  not  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  word  justice,  and  he  considered  himself 


72  THE  NEAR  EAST 

SO  far  above  a  Christian  that  there  was  no 
redress  if  he  killed  one.  So  the  Balkaners  had 
only  the  law  of  might  and  the  golden  rule  to 
do  the  other  fellow  as  he  would  do  you,  and 
be  sure  to  do  him  first.  They  are  not  to 
blame  for  having  a  lot  of  the  cave  man  in  them. 
They  have  had  to  live  that  way  while  the  rest 
of  us  were  going  to  school  and  revising  religion 
and  science  upward. 

And  the  Turk,  "the  terrible  Turk"  that  we 
have  heard  so  much  about, — everybody  in  the 
Balkans  says  he  is  a  better  man  and  was  a 
better  ruler  than  either  the  Bulgar  or  the  Serb 
would  be, — the  latter  part  depending  on  who 
is  doing  the  talking. 


Something  About  Servians 

Belgrade,  Servia,  Aug.  26. 
The  Servians  are  a  nation  of  farmers.  The 
cities  do  not  control  the  elections  or  the  char- 
acter of  the  government.  The  young  Servian 
has  not  yet  yielded  to  the  desire  to  walk  the 
paved  street  by  electric  light,  but  stays  on  the 
farm  with  his  folks.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the 
farmers  of  Servia  own  their  farms,  even  if  over 
half  of  these  farms  do  not  exceed  12  acres. 
There  are  practically  no  landlords  or  large 
land-owners.  There  is  a  law  which  makes  it 
almost  impossible  to  sell  a  homestead,  and  at 
least  five  acres  is  exempt  from  debt  and  not 
ehgible  to  mortgage.  The  farm  is  not  held  in 
the  name  of  an  individual,  but  of  the  family, 
and  all  have  to  agree  to  a  sale  before  it  can 
be  made.  Consequently  there  are  not  many 
sales.  Servia  is  nearly  all  tillable  land,  like 
Kansas,  and  raises  the  same  kinds  of  crops, — 
corn,  wheat,  cattle  and  hogs,  not  forgetting 
the  omnipresent  geese.     There  are  copper  and 

(73) 


74  THE  NEAR  EAST 

coal  mines  and  some  gold  production,  but  the 
general  welfare  of  the  Servians  is  mostly  pro- 
moted by  the  grain  and  livestock.  This  makes 
a  mighty  good  start  for  a  progressive  nation. 
Where  no  one  is  very  rich  and  no  one  very 
poor,  where  land  is  fertile  and  easy  to  culti- 
vate, happiness  ought  to  follow,  and  it  will 
if  there  are  no  wars.  Schools  are  generally 
established,  newspapers  are  cheap,  the  govern- 
ment is  honest,  and  laws  are  enforced.  Servia 
has  the  makings  of  a  great  country. 

The  army  is  returning  from  the  war,  the 
double  war,  first  against  the  Turks  and  then 
against  the  Bulgars.  Those  Servian  soldiers 
look  well  in  their  drab  unirorms,  and  today  as 
I  saw  10,000  of  them  march  through  the  streets 
of  Belgrade  I  felt  sure  of  the  future. 

The  Serbs  are  a  bright-minded  crowd,  and 
remind  me  a  good  deal  of  the  Irish,  even  to 
their  inability  to  run  away  from  a  fight.  They 
are  keen,  intelligent,  and  willing  to  work  if 
the  work  is  not  too  hard.  I  had  as  guide  a 
Serb  who  spent  thirteen  years  in  the  United 
States,  the  last  part  as  an  expert  mechanic  in 
a  machine  shop,  making  four  or  five  dollars 


SOMETIIIXr.    AT^O['T   SERVIANS  75 

a  day.  He  came  home  to  fight  the  Turk, 
and  I  asked  him  if  he  was  not  going  back  to 
America. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  respect  America.  I  can 
make  three  or  four  times  as  much  money 
there.  But  I  have  to  work  overtime,  and  hard. 
In  Servia  I  do  not  make  near  so  much,  but  I 
make  enough — why  should  I  want  to  kill  my- 
self in  a  big  shop  for  more  money?" 

There  is  a  good  deal  in  his  philosophy. 
Many  an  American  kills  himself  by  w^ork  with- 
out knowing  it.  Nearly  all  Americans  fail  to 
really  enjoy  life,  because  they  want  to  make 
more  money,  usually  for  some  one  else  to 
spend.  My  Servian  friend  has  an  interest  in 
a  little  land  and  has  saved  some  money.  He 
will  continue  to  w^ork  six  or  eight  hours  a  day, 
and  in  the  evening  he  will  sit  in  the  cafe  and 
sip  a  little  slivowitz,  or  talk  politics  with  his 
neighbor,  or  do  anything  else  that  he  wants 
to, — and  he  will  be  happier  than  he  would  be 
working  himself  stiff  and  then  having  as  com- 
panions only  other  men  equally  as  tired  and 
incapable  of  pleasure. 

The  wants  of  the  Serb  farmer  are  few.  He 
usually  has  two  suits  of  clothes  :  one  he  wears 


7G  THE  NEAR  EAST 

from  April  to  October,  the  other  from  October 
to  April,  often  without  removing  them  in  the 
mean  time.  The  summer  suit  consists  of  a 
white  or  once  white  blouse  and  skirt,  the  latter 
coming  nearly  to  his  knees.  He  wears  home- 
made shoes  and  the  trousers  which  come  from 
the  skirts  are  tucked  inside  gaily  embroidered 
high  socks  or  leggings.  All  of  this  clothing  is 
made  on  the  farm,  and  the  only  way  a  dude 
can  show  off  is  to  get  more  embroidery  on 
blouse  and  leggings.  The  winter  suit  is  the 
same  up  to  the  darker  trousers  and  a  coat  made 
of  sheepskin  with  the  wool  left  on,  reversible, 
so  that  the  wool  side  can  be  worn  either  out 
or  in.  I  do  not  consider  this  costume  an  es- 
pecially pleasing  one,  but  it  is  one  the  Serb 
has  worn  for  generations.  It  looks  equally  as 
well  as  the  kind  he  will  get  when  "progress" 
reaches  men's  clothing  in  Servia. 

I  like  the  Servian  men,  and  I  think  I  should 
like  the  Servian  women  if  they  would  stand 
still  and  be  talked  to.  The  real  Servian  coun- 
try lady  wears  a  red  or  yellow  or  blue  shawl 
about  her  head,  a  waist  of  some  equally  as 
modest  color,  a  skirt  which  comes  to  above 


SOMETHING  ABOUT  SERVIANS  77 

where  her  shoe-tops  would  be  if  she  wore 
shoes,  with  a  sht  up  the  side  that  reveals  gaily 
embroidered  white  goods,  and  reveals  a  plenty. 
Her  feet  are  bare  when  at  home,  but  she  has 
leather  shoes  and  embroidered  stockings  when 
she  comes  to  town  to  see  the  soldiers. 

The  Servian  woman  is  in  demand,  for  she 
is  a  worker.  When  a  young  man  marries  he 
takes  the  girl  to  his  family's  farm,  where  he 
has  constructed  a  two-room  cottage.  They 
work  for  his  father  and  mother,  but  have  an 
actual  legal  interest  in  the  property,  making 
the  family  ownership  I  have  spoken  of.  If  a 
Servian  has  five  sons — and  he  generally  does — 
they  all  marry  and  come  to  their  own  httle 
houses  on  the  home  place.  The  women  work 
•in  the  fields  and  are  given  all  the  rights  that 
men  have  along  that  line,  but  not  the  right 
to  vote  at  the  elections.  Also,  if  a  man  has 
company  the  woman  is  not  expected  to  show 
up,  except  to  wait  on  the  table.  This  has 
been  a  fighting  country  for  so  many  genera- 
tions that  the  sex  which  goes  to  battle  also 
has  the  best  seats  at  home.  When  the  fight- 
ing age  is  passed  in  Servia  and  the  talking 


78  THE  NEAR  EAST 

age  has  come,  then  man  will  go  back  and  sit 
down  where  he  belongs. 

The  men-folks  of  the  family  meet  every 
evening  in  the  large  parental  house  to  discuss 
the  affairs  of  the  country,  while  the  women  are 
given  embroidery  work  to  do.  Women  have 
not  had  much  opportunity  for  education,  but 
that  is  coming  in  Servia,  and  before  long  the 
good  old  customs  will  probably  be  given  a  vig- 
orous twist. 

Of  course  the  customs  of  the  country  ~  are 
changing.  Here  in  Belgrade  there  are  many 
Servians  who  wear  the  same  clothes  that  are 
worn  in  Paris  and  Hutchinson.  The  comfort- 
able and  attractive  fez  cap  is  being  replaced 
by  the  derby  and  the  silk  tile.  The  gaily 
colored  skirt  of  the  peasant  girl  is  giving  way 
in  the  city  to  the  stove-pipe  model  now  used 
in  the  West. 

When  the  people  here  speak  of  "the  West" 
they  mean  Germany,  France,  and  England. 
The  Servians  are  modeling  after  the  civiliza- 
tion of  this  West.  They  have  not  changed 
their  calendar,  and  when  it  is  the  26th  of 
August  according  to  our  calendar  it  is  the  13th 


SOMETHING  ABOUT  SERVIANS  79 

of  August  by  theirs.  A  Roman  Catholic  pope 
fixed  our  calendar,  and  the  Greek  Catholic  will 
have  none  of  it.  They  never  had  a  leap  year. 
Perhaps  leap  year  with  its  incidental  advan- 
tages is  not  needed  in  Servia.  A  girl  here 
does  not  take  a  dowry,  but  is  considered  a 
prize  to  be  paid  for.  Marriages  are  not  made 
for  love,  but  because  the  man  needs  help.  It 
is  no  trick  at  all  for  a  woman  to  get  married  if 
she  is  stout  and  healthy,  and  in  fact  she  will 
be  snapped  up  first  and  ahead  of  a  pretty  girl 
by  the  wise  Servian  father  who  selects  the 
help-mate  for  his  son. 

On  a  little  farm  there  is  no  use  for  machinery 
and  no  call  for  hired  hands.  The  family  does 
all  the  work  and  does  not  have  to  strain  its 
backs  very  much  in  the  doing.  Where  the 
wants  are  little  the  supplying  of  them  is  not 
difficult.  The  Servian  gents  have  time  for  war 
and  the  women  for  embroidery.  All  are  happy 
and  comfortable  and  do  not  worry  about  pure- 
food  laws  and  individual  drinking-cups.  They 
never  have  appendicitis  or  operations,  and 
they  live  more  contentedly  and  longer  than 
many  who  do. 


Story  of  the  Servians 

Belgrade,  Servia,  Aug.  27. 
The  Servians  came  into  the  Balkan  penin- 
sula about  the  sixth  century,  and  occupied 
practically  the  territory  which  they  now  con- 
trol, with  parts  of  Austria  and  Macedonia. 
They  were  Slavs,  and  related  to  the  Russians. 
They  were  somewhat  modified  by  the  earlier 
inhabitants,  whom  they  killed,  made  slaves, 
or  married.  Under  the  Greek  empire  at  Con- 
stantinople they  prospered,  and  then  they  es- 
tablished a  nation  of  their  own,  fighting  the 
neighbors  and  sometimes  the  emperor.  About 
the  middle  of  the  12th  century  a  Servian  chief 
united  nearly  all  of  the  Balkan  territory  into 
a  Servian  empire,  and  when  the  Turks  came 
along  200  years  later  the  empire  of  Servia  held 
almost  complete  sway.  The  Turks  would 
have  been  stopped  if  the  neighbors  had  been 
faithful,  but  some  of  them  joined  with  the 
Turks  and  the  others  remained  neutral,  hop- 
ing to  profit  by  the  overthrow  of  the  Serbs. 

(80) 


STORY  OF  THE  SERVIANS  81 

Consequently  the  Turks  conquered  and  de- 
stroyed all  the  Servians  they  could  find.  Some 
went  to  Montenegro  and  established  that  little 
nation  which  kept  its  independence.  But  for 
the  next  400  years  the  Servians  were  subject 
to  the  Turks,  with  no  rights  that  their  con- 
querors were  bound  to  respect.  The  Servians 
were  Greek  Christians,  and  the  Turks  did  not 
disturb  their  religion.  All  the  Turks  wanted 
was  taxes  and  women.  The  Servians  made 
no  national  effort  for  freedom,  but  during  the 
400  years  there  was  always  a  bushwhacking 
war,  including  the  killing  of  prisoners,  the  de- 
struction of  property,  and  general  brigandage. 
The  Turks  even  left  local  government  to  the 
Servians,  always  providing  Turkish  governors, 
tax  collectors  and  soldiers  to  be  maintained, 
and  with  license  to  do  as  they  pleased. 

It  was  about  the  year  1800,  when  the  Turk- 
ish empire  was  growing  generally  weak,  that 
the  Servians  by  chance  started  on  their  road 
to  independence.  The  Sultan  was  trying  to 
overcome  the  power  of  the  Janissaries,  a  part 
of  his  own  army  which  was  making  and  un- 
making sultans.     A  division  of  the  Janissaries 


THE  NEAR  EAST 


was  in  charge  of  the  fortress  of  Belgrade  and 
living  off  the  people  of  the  neighborhood,  col- 
lecting exorbitant  tribute  but  sending  none  to 
the  Sultan  at  Constantinople.  He  notified 
them  to  stop  it  or  to  please  remit  his  share,  and 
threatened  if  they  did  not  do  so  he  would  send 
a  Christian  army  against  them.  Their  leaders 
construed  this  to  mean,  as  it  probably  did, 
that  the  Sultan  would  organize  a  Servian 
army  for  their  punishment:  so  they  decided 
to  strike  first  by  killing  all  the  leaders  who 
might  be  used  in  such  an  organization.  Many 
of  the  prominent  Servians  were  thus  killed, 
but  the  result  was  a  boomerang  for  the  Janis- 
saries. Under  the  leadership  of  a  Servian 
guerilla  chieftain,  George  Petrovitch,  called 
Kara-George  or  Black  George,  the  Servians 
rallied  and  in  the  name  of  the  Sultan  and  with 
his  permission  they  cleaned  the  Janissaries  at 
Belgrade  so  that  not  one  escaped. 

This  pleased  the  Sultan,  but  when  he  sent 
a  new  governor  with  a  request  to  the  Servians 
to  disperse,  now  that  their  fight  was  won,  the 
Servians  swelled  up  and  refused  to  do  so.  A 
real  Turkish  army  was  sent  to  force  them  to 


STORY  OF  THE  SERVIANS  83 

yield,  and  they  defeated  it.  This  was  the 
first  time  the  Servians  had  met  the  Turks  in 
real  battle  and  won.     The  hoodoo  was  broken. 

Then  Russia  came  forward  as  a  friend  of  the 
Servians  and  an  enemy  of  the  Turks.  Per- 
haps freedom  would  have  been  won,  but  Na- 
poleon started  on  his  invasion  of  Russia  and 
their  ally  could  give  them  little  except  advice. 
The  Servians  were  worn  out  by  fighting  for 
nine  years.  Without  much  resistance  a  Turk- 
ish force  occupied  Belgrade,  and  most  of  the 
Servian  leaders  left  the  country.  Again  Ser- 
via  was  a  Turkish  province. 

But  one  Servian  chieftain  had  not  gone. 
Milosli  Obrenovitch,  a  prominent  farmer,  at 
first  played  friendly  to  the  Turks.  They 
sought  to  use  him  to  pacify  his  people.  Rus- 
sia w^as  getting  in  better  shape  once  more,  and 
after  a  couple  of  years  fooling  the  Moslems 
Mr.  Obrenovitch  raised  the  Servian  standard 
and  insurrected.  lie  defeated  the  Turks  in  a 
few  small  battles,  and  then  he  out-maneuvered 
them  in  diplomacy.  The  Turkish  hold  on 
things  generally  was  slipping,  and  the  Sultan 
made  a  treaty  with  Obrenovitch  in  181G,  giv- 


84  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ing  the  Servians  practically  control  of  their 
own  affairs.  Milosh  stood  at  the  head  with 
his  countrj^men. 

Everything  being  nice  and  smooth,  Kara- 
George  came  back.  In  order  to  please  the 
Sultan  and  perhaps  to  strengthen  his  own  po- 
sition as  Boss,  Obrenovitch  had  George's 
head  cut  off  and  sent  as  a  present  to  the  Sultan. 
This  pleased  the  Turks  and  made  them  feel 
good  toward  the  Servians,  and  the  latter  did 
not  seem  to  mind,  for  the  following  year, 
1817,  they  chose  Milosh  Obrenovitch  heredi- 
tary prince  of  Servia,  a  position  in  which  he 
was  confirmed  by  the  Sultan.  Prince  Milosh 
was  a  statesman.  He  established  schools,  en- 
couraged better  farming,  made  improved  laws, 
and  generally  promoted  the  progress  of  Servia 
and  the  people.  He  tried  to  give  the  country 
a  liberal  constitution,  but  Russia  and  the 
Sultan  together  forced  him  to  stop  that.  Mil- 
osh was  a  despot,  but  he  was  a  good  one  for 
Servia.  He  kept  the  enemy  away  by  diplo- 
macy and  prepared  the  little  country  for  the 
future.  His  political  mistake  was  in  having  a 
falling-out  with  Russia,  whose  influence  was 
necessary  to  keep  the  Turks  off,  and  in  1839, 


STORY  OF  THE  SERVIANS  85 

after  22  j'cars  of  dcspoting,  Milosh  was  forced 
to  abdicate  by  the  enemies  he  had  made  in 
his  home  town,  led  by  the  Russian  consul. 
His  son  took  his  place,  but  that  did  not  suit 
the  Russians ;  so  he  was  forced  to  skip  the 
country  and  Alexander  Karageorgeovitch,  son 
of  Kara-George,  was  chosen  prince  in  his 
place.  This  was  the  second  chapter  in  the 
Servian  feud,  the  first  having  been  when  Al- 
exander's father's  head  was  presented  to  the 
Sultan. 

Alexander  was  not  much  of  a  king,  and  let 
the  Servian  pohticians  run  his  policy.  They 
got  him  crossways  with  Russia,  and  the  in- 
fluence of  the  czar  resulted  in  Alexander  being 
dethroned  in  1858,  and  Milosh  Obrenovitch, 
the  original,  being  recalled  to  the  job  to  which 
he  was  elected  in  1817.  Milosh  was  old,  and 
did  not  live  long.  His  son,  Michael  Obreno- 
vitch, succeeded  him  in  1859,  and  was  a  pro- 
gressive ruler.  The  Turks  still  kept  a  garri- 
son in  the  fortress  at  Belgrade,  and  it  was  a 
sore  eye  to  the  Servian  people.  Alexander 
demanded  that  this  be  removed.  The  Sultan 
was  being  worried  by  Russia,  and  asked  the 
Powers  of  Europe  what  to  do.     They  did  not 


86  THE  NEAR  EAST 

want  a  war  started  in  the  Balkans,  so  they  ad- 
vised the  Turk  to  withdraw  his  garrison  and 
to  save  his  face  by  placing  the  fortress  at  Bel- 
grade in  charge  of  the  Prince  of  Servia.  The 
Sultan  did  so,  and  in  1868  the  flag  of  Turkey 
disappeared  from  Servia,  although  the  country 
was  still  under  nominal  allegiance  to  the  Otto- 
man Empire. 

Then  came  another  chapter  in  the  Obreno- 
vitch-Karageorgeovitch  argument,  which  was 
a  good  deal  like  one  of  the  feuds  in  Kentucky. 
Michael  was  assassinated  by  a  bunch  of  the 
Karageorgeovitchers.  His  young  cousin  Mi- 
lan was  elected  prince  by  the  national  assem- 
bly. He  helped  the  Russians  in  the  war  with 
Turkey  in  1878,  but  when  peace  was  con- 
cluded there  was  little  in  it  for  Servia.  Milan 
got  sore  on  the  czar  and  made  friends  with 
Austria,  always  the  enemy  of  Russia.  Then 
Milan,  who  had  been  "prince"  of  Servia,  de- 
clared himself  king,  and  raised  his  own  salary. 
The  pro-Russian  party,  led  by  the  Karageor- 
gites,  sought  his  scalp.  He  had  trouble  with 
his  wife.  Queen  Nathalie,  tried  to  get  a  di- 
vorce, and  was  much  talked  about.     He  saw 


STORY  OF  THE  SERVIANS  87 

trouble  coming,  so  in  1889  he  abdicated  in 
favor  of  his  youthful  son,  Alexander. 

The  climax  to  this  chapter  will  be  generally 
remembered.  Alexander  was  a  clever,  brutal, 
unscrupulous  cuss,  who  revoked  the  liberal 
constitution  promulgated  by  his  father.  That 
did  not  injure  his  prospects  much,  but  when 
he  married  a  lady  named  Draga,  with  whom 
he  had  previously  been  living,  the  enemies  of 
the  dynasty  got  in  their  work.  One  night  in 
1903  while  Alexander  and  Draga  were  drink- 
ing highballs  and  smoking  cigarettes,  the  of- 
ficers of  the  army  quartered  at  Belgrade  broke 
into  their  rooms,  killed  both  of  them,  threw 
their  bodies  into  the  front  yard  and  slashed 
them  into  slivers.  It  was  an  awful  crime, 
and  the  public  sentiment  of  the  world  was 
shocked.  The  Servians  took  it  quietly ;  no 
object  in  making  a  fuss  or  prosecuting  any- 
body, for  that  would  not  bring  back  Alexander 
and  Draga,  whom  no  one  wanted  back  anyway. 
Peter  Karageorgeovitch,  grandson  of  the  origi- 
nal Black  George,  hurried  home  from  Paris 
and  was  elected  king  by  the  national  assembly. 

Apparently  that  ends  the  feud.  There  are 
no  Obrenovitches  left.     King  Peter  has  ruled 


88  THE  NEAR  EAST 

wisely  and  economically.  His  prime  minister, 
Mr.  Paschisch,  is  the  real  thing  in  statesman- 
ship, and  also  knows  how  to  carry  the  con- 
gressional election.  Under  his  administration 
Servia  prepared  for  the  recent  war,  has  money 
in  the  treasury,  and  is  steadily  advancing. 

Just  to  show  the  progress  made,  I  will  il- 
lustrate. King  Peter's  oldest  son,  George,  is 
a  rough  chap.  A  couple  of  years  ago  in  a  fit 
of  anger  he  killed  a  servant.  Public  sentiment 
is  so  far  along  in  Servia  that  George  resigned 
his  rights  to  the  throne  and  went  to  live  in 
Paris  and  Monte  Carlo  on  a  pension.  Up  to 
this  generation  the  right  of  a  prince  of  Servia 
to  kill  a  servant  was  unquestioned.  Now  it 
does  not  make  him  liable  to  prosecution,  but 
it  does  injure  his  political  chances. 

The  next  brother,  Rudolph,  who  will  suc- 
ceed Peter,  is  said  to  be  a  fine  fellow.  He 
fought  in  the  recent  war  and  behaved  bravely 
and  well.  He  is  popular,  and  a  marriage  is 
being  arranged  for  him  with  a  Russian  princess. 
The  government  is  building  a  new  palace  for 
him.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  feud  of  the  Obrenovitches  and  the  Kara- 


STORY  OF  THE   SERVIANS  89 

georgcovitclies  is  ended  with  the  end  of  the 
Obrens  and  the  coming  on  of  Rudolph. 

Too  much  must  not  be  expected  of  a  people 
who  were  a  conquered  race  for  400  years  and 
who  have  only  just  come  into  the  right  to 
control  themselves.  They  will  make  mis- 
takes just  as  our  forefathers  did  at  a  similar 
stage  of  development.  But  the  Servians  have 
the  qualities  that  make  a  strong  people.  As 
we  say,  "they  feel  their  oats."  They  are 
ready  for  another  war  with  anybody,  Austria 
preferred,  and  they  will  be  on  the  world's 
active  stage  in  the  next  few  years. 


A  Balkan  Paris 

Bucharest,  Roumania,  Aug.  29. 
There  is  one  obstacle  to  travel  in  the  Near 
East  which  is  often  met  and  which  is  hard  to 
get  around, — the  Cholera.  There  is  always 
cholera  in  this  country,  just  as  there  is  always 
smallpox  in  ours,  but  occasionally  there  is  an 
epidemic  which  is  dignified  by  a  proclamation 
of  war  and  the  Cholera  is  officially  recognized 
by  quarantine  regulations.  There  is  no  doubt 
but  that  cholera  is  the  result  of  bad  sanitation 
and  filth,  but  it  can  be  communicated  to  the 
clean  and  decent.  It  comes  upon  the  victim 
suddenly,  and  in  a  few  hours  he  is  no  more. 
It  goes  through  a  town  or  a  country  like  a 
hostile  army,  leaving  a  train  of  death  behind, 
for  most  cases  of  cholera,  even  under  modern 
treatment,  do  not  recover.  There  is  always 
cholera  somewhere;  one  season  it  will  be  at 
Smyrna,  the  next  in  Constantinople,  then  in 
southern  Russia,  and  so  on,  like  the  march  of 


(m 


A  BALKAN  PARIS  91 

a  mysterious  force,   and   there  is   no  telling 
where  it  will  break  out  next. 

During  the  recent  summer  there  have  been 
a  million  soldiers  under  arms  and  in  camps  in 
the  Balkan  peninsula.  They  have  picked  up 
the  cholera  in  the  slums  of  the  towns  or  the 
dirt  of  the  camps,  and  now  as  they  are  return- 
ing to  their  homes  they  are  taking  germs  with 
them  which  may  develop  at  any  time  into 
an  epidemic.  There  were  said  to  be  200  cases 
at  Belgrade  when  we  were  there.  The  Rou- 
manians have  a  number  of  cases  in  their  army 
hospitals,  and  in  the  south  of  the  peninsula 
much  is  reported.  Under  modern  methods  of 
treatment  the  cholera  can  be  stopped  or  con- 
trolled and  there  is  no  prospect  of  a  recurrence 
of  one  of  those  plagues  which  in  the  past  have 
taken  off  the  people  by  wholesale.  That  kind 
of  a  scourge  is  no  longer  possible  in  the  Near 
East.  But  the  scare  of  the  cholera  is  still  in 
the  human  heart,  and  as  soon  as  it  develops 
in  one  place,  all  the  neighbors  quarantine 
against  the  unforlunate.  If  you  happen  to  be 
on  the  inside  of  the  line  it  will  take  you  and 
your  baggage  at  least  five  days  of  fumigation 
before  you  can  proceed.     The  quarantine  is 


92  THE  NEAR  EAST 

more  dreaded  by  the  traveler  than  is  the  chol- 
era. 

For  that  reason  and  the  further  one  that 
the  railroad  is  not  running,  having  been  de- 
stroyed during  the  war,  it  was  necessary  for 
us  to  give  up  the  direct  route  to  Constantino- 
ple, and  detour  through  Roumania,  to  go  to 
the  Turkish  capital  by  the  way  of  the  Black 
Sea. 

Roumania  is  one  of  the  small  countries  of 
which  little  is  heard,  because  Roumania  has 
in  recent  years  been  attending  to  her  own  busi- 
ness. Roumania  does  not  consider  herself 
much  related  to  the  neighbors.  Roumania  is 
a  sort  of  Latin  island  in  a  sea  of  Slavs.  Her 
people  are  descendants  of  a  colony  of  Roman 
soldiers  who  were  sent  here  by  Trajan,  mixed 
with  of  course  and  affected  by  Serbs,  Goths, 
Huns  and  others  who  swept  across  these  fertile 
plains  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian 
Era.  But  they  retain  a  semi-Latin  language 
and  Latin  notions  of  society  and  life,  markedly 
different  from  those  of  the  Bulgars,  the  Serbs 
and  the  Russians  with  whom  they  are  politi- 
cally related. 


A   BALICAN   PARIS  03 

During  the  recent  war  against  Turkey, 
Rouniania  refused  to  join  the  alHes,  but  when 
the  Turks  were  Hcked  and  the  second  war 
began,  Roumania  put  a  fresh  army  into  Bul- 
garia with  a  threat  of  w^ar  unless  the  Bulgars 
gave  Iloumania  a  slice  of  territory  on  the 
Black  Sea.  Bulgaria  had  to  come  across  with 
the  land,  and  now  the  lloumanian  army  is 
returning  home  full  of  enthusiasm — and  per- 
haps cholera. 

Roumania  broke  away  from  the  Turks  in 
1876,  by  taking  part  in  the  Russian-Turkish 
war.  When  the  Powers  of  Europe  divided 
the  spoils  at  the  Berlin  conference  they  made 
Roumania  practically  independent,  and  au- 
thorized the  selection  of  a  prince.  There  w^as 
some  difficulty  getting  an  available  man  for 
the  job.  The  princes  who  had  anything  to  do 
did  not  care  to  take  a  chance  on  Roumania, 
which  was  then  considered  wild  and  woolly. 
Finally  a  German  prince  named  Charles  agreed 
to  try  it,  after  being  told  by  Bismarck  that  at 
least  the  experience  would  be  interesting. 
That  was  in  1878,  and  Charles  is  still  king, 
having  shown  himself  a  fairly  wise  and  popu- 
lar ruler.     The  trouble  in  Roumania  was  that 


94  THE  NEAR   EAST 

the  land  was  owned  by  a  few  great  proprietors. 
The  government  has  attempted  to  reheve  this 
situation,  and  has  done  so  to  some  extent; 
but  the  big  ranch  is  still  the  curse  of  the  coun- 
try. You  can't  make  a  nation  strong  or  a 
country  right  where  the  people  do  not  own 
their  homes  or  have  a  chance  to  do  so. 

This  land  is  remarkably  Hke  central  Kansas. 
It  is  mostly  level  and  is  all  capable  of  cultiva- 
tion. Corn  is  the  principal  crop,  and  the 
great  fields  of  tall  stalks  are  just  hke  they  are 
in  Kansas  when  it  rains.  Horses  and  cattle 
are  raised  for  the  European  market.  There 
is  cheap  labor  and  not  much  farm  machinery, 
although  I  did  see  a  steam  plow  tearing  up 
the  soil  at  one  place.  Roumania  is  about 
haK  the  size  of  Kansas,  but  has  a  mountain 
range  along  the  north  and  several  big  rivers 
running  through  it, — good  things  to  have 
around.  It  also  has  rich  oil  fields,  and  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  is  fixing  the  price  in 
this  country  just  as  it  is  in  Kansas,  U.  S.  A. 

This  city  of  Bucharest  claims  to  be  "the 
Paris  of  the  Balkans."  In  order  to  live  up 
to  the  title  the  people  have  to  stay  out  late 


A   BALKAN  PARIS  95 

at  night  and  always  be  gay.  To  get  a  repu- 
tation of  being  a  "Paris"  is  for  a  town  much 
Hke  the  fate  of  a  man  who  is  pronounced  a 
"sport."  Any  effort  he  may  make  to  lead  a 
useful  life  is  hailed  as  a  good  joke.  Every- 
body warns  everybody  else  against  him,  but 
loves  to  be  seen  in  his  company.  The  women 
condemn  his  morals  and  chase  him  for  the 
delightful  danger  of  his  society.  The  men  slap 
him  on  the  back,  but  they  don't  loan  him  any 
money.  Finally  he  goes  broke,  gets  wrinkled 
and  greasy,  nobody  notices  him,  and  he  doesn't 
even  enjoy  the  reminiscence  of  his  "sport." 

I  am  not  saying  anything  against  the  folks 
here  in  Bucharest.  The  men  step  lively,  the 
women  are  pretty,  and  divorces  are  more  nu- 
merous than  in  any  other  country  in  Europe. 
Their  idea  is  to  show  how  different  they  are 
from  Russians  and  Bulgarians,  and  that  they 
are  related  to  the  Italians  by  descent  from 
forefathers  who  once  went  out  at  night  and 
made  Home  howl.  It  is  a  great  responsibility 
to  be  a  forefather.  I  doubt  if  the  people  of 
New  England  would  be  so  self -admittedly  good 
if  they  did  not  feel  it  necessary  on  account  of 
the    old    Puritans.     Many    a    Virginian    has 


96  THE  NEAR  EAST 

bankrupted  himself  because  he  was  a  son  of 
a  cavaHer  and  had  to  cavaHer  some  himself. 
So  it  is  that  the  old  Romans  who  came  to  this 
section  and  took  soldiers'  claims  and  native 
wives,  have  left  an  inheritance  of  pride  and 
playfulness  to  the  present  inhabitants  of  the 
Roumanian  plains  and  cities. 

Along  with  a  reputation  for  being  a  live 
town  comes  the  necessity  of  high  taxes.  Ev- 
erywhere I  go  there  is  a  feeling  that  taxes 
are  too  oppressive  and  must  be  higher  than 
in  the  next  place.  In  the  next  place  they  have 
the  same  idea,  and  so  it  marches  on.  The 
government  has  put  Bucharest  a  good  many 
years  in  advance  of  the  country.  There  are 
parks  and  playgrounds  and  palaces.  You 
can't  secure  or  maintain  a  park  without  pay- 
ing the  price,  and  the  older  the  park  the  more 
it  costs.  The  streets  in  Bucharest  have  been 
widened  and  are  kept  clean.  That  also  costs 
money.  But  the  burden  which  bears  on  these 
people  in  Europe  is  not  the  park  or  the  palace, 
but  the  soldier  and  his  maintenance.  Every 
young  man  must  serve  in  the  army  two  years 
and  keep   up   his   training  by   annual   drills 


A   BALKAN  PARIS  97 

thereafter.  The  government  must  buy  uni- 
forms and  guns  and  keep  them  new  and  up 
to  date.  The  direct  war  expense,  which  is 
maintained  when  there  is  no  war,  is  the  load 
that  breaks  the  worker's  back. 

In  Roumania  this  summer  the  army  was 
"mobihzed."  Under  the  call  every  man  in 
Roumania  between  the  ages  of  17  and  35  had 
to  quit  his  job  or  his  office  or  his  store  and  go 
to  his  regiment.  You  can  imagine  what  that 
did  to  business.  The  same  situation  prevailed 
in  every  one  of  the  Balkan  states,  except  that 
the  others  had  real  war  while  Roumania 
merely  got  ready  for  one.  In  Bulgaria  every 
man  between  the  ages  of  17  and  45  was  in  the 
service.  So  it  was  in  Servia.  Of  course  the 
railroads  quit  running,  except  for  military 
purposes,  stores  closed,  factories  shut  down, 
and  work  was  paralyzed.  The  women  took 
care  of  the  farms,  but  in  many  places  in  the 
Balkans  there  were  no  crops  this  year,  for 
lack  of  labor.  You  can  get  the  idea  of  the 
condition  if  you  think  what  would  be  the  re- 
sult in  Kansas  if  every  man  between  the  ages 
of  seventeen  and  forty-five  were  taken  off  his 
work  and  sent  to  the  army.     It  is  not  only 


98  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  actual  expense  of  military  supplies  and 
operations,  but  it  is  the  loss  in  production  oc- 
casioned by  the  withdrawal  of  effective  men 
from  their  work. 

The  people  have  been  accepting  the  situa- 
tion as  inevitable,  but  there  is  a  sentiment 
developing  in  favor  of  some  sort  of  a  change. 
A  burden  of  taxes,  which  takes  a  man's  money, 
part  of  the  best  years  of  his  life,  and  perhaps 
life  itself,  is  hard  to  endure. 

But  the  Roumanians  just  now  do  not  seem 
to  mind.  They  are  celebrating  their  short 
campaign,  talking  of  the  time  when  they  will 
have  to  go  out  again,  staying  up  late  nights 
and  trying  to  deserve  the  reputation  of  having 
in  their  capital  Bucharest,  the  Paris  of  the 
Balkans. 


I 


Turkey  and  the  Turk 


Constantinople,  the  Different 

Constantinople,  Aug.  30. 
Last  night  we  sailed  on  the  Black  Sea  from 
Constanza,  and  this  morning  I  went  on  deck 
with  the  usual  expectation  that  disappoint- 
ment was  again  due.  But  it  was  not  so.  The 
Black  Sea  was  black,  not  a  black  black  but 
a  green  black,  and  black  enough  to  deserve 
its  name.  All  the  morning  we  sailed  along  the 
c^ast  of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey,  and  soon  after 
noon  sighted  a  hilly  land  which  they  said  was 
Asia.  It  did  not  look  like  Asia  to  me.  I  am 
not  sure  just  what  I  expected  Asia  to  look 
1  ke,  except  it  should  have  been  different  and 
not  so  much  like  Missouri.  Asia  is  the  land 
of  the  Arabian  nights,  the  caliphs,  the  khedives 
a  id  the  curious  folk  of  oriental  tale.  Aladdin 
had  his  wonderful  lamp  and  Abou  ben  Adhem, 
may  his  tribe  increase,  resided  on  a  back 
street  in  an  Asiatic  villayet,  whatever  that  is. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  think  of  Asia  as  a 
land  where  they  raised  corn  and  watermelons, 

(101) 


102  THE  NEAR  EAST 


but  that  is  just  what  the  telescope  showed  to 
be  the  real  condition  in  Asia  this  morning. 

The  ship  turned  into  the  crack  in  the  wall, 
the  strip  of  water  which  divides  Europe  from 
Asia,  the  Bosphorus.  This  is  really  a  river 
about  a  mile  to  two  miles  wide,  twenty-five 
miles  long,  and  winding  in  and  out  among 
lofty  hills  which  rise  almost  directly  from  both 
banks.  On  the  slopes  of  these  hills  are  culti- 
vated farms,  quaint  villages  of  oriental  archi- 
tecture, domed  and  minaretted,  ruins  of  cas- 
tles, towers  and  fortresses,  all  the  greens  that 
vineyards,  fields  and  woods  can  make,  houses 
and  palaces  of  white,  the  Bosphorus  blue  as 
the  foreground  and  the  sky  blue  as  the  back- 
ground,— a  picture  panorama  for  the  twenty- 
five  miles.  Then  comes  Constantinople  as  the 
climax,  stretching  up  and  over  the  hills  with 
its  mass  of  white  buildings,  its  cypress  groves, 
its  mosques  and  palaces.  The  blue  water  of 
the  Golden  Horn,  covered  with  ships  and 
boats,  with  sails  and  flags,  runs  right  through 
the  center  of  the  city  almost  at  right  angle 
from  the  Bosphorus  on  the  European  side,  a 
harbor  different  from  all  others  and  a  scene 
that  must  stick  so  long  as  memory  will  last. 


CONSTANTINOPLE,   THE  DIFFERENT       103 

The  ship  came  into  the  dock,  and  amid  the 
noise  of  the  traffic,  the  calls  of  the  carriers, 
the  jabber  of  a  dozen  languages  and  the  com- 
bination of  a  hundred  smells,  we  followed  the 
Turk  who  carried  our  baggage  on  his  back  to 
the  custom-house.  With  the  help  of  a  hotel 
interpreter  our  passport  was  examined  and 
permission  stamped  upon  it  for  us  to  enter 
the  country.  With  some  awe  I  approached 
the  customs  examiner,  who  stood  behind  a 
counter.  I  told  him  what  I  wanted  in  English, 
and  he  politely  waved  his  hand.  I  waved  my 
hand  at  him  and  said  "baggage"  in  all  the 
languages  in  which  I  know  the  word.  He 
said  a  few  words  in  Turkish  and  looked  pleas- 
ant. I  started  to  open  the  bags,  but  he  shook 
his  head  gently.  We  waited  a  moment,  and 
then  I  came  to  and  handed  him  a  quarter. 
He  smiled.  I  had  at  last  used  a  language  he 
understood.  He  marked  every  piece  of  bag- 
gage with  the  Turkish  sign  that  means  "O. 
K.,"  bowed  politely,  and  said  something  which 
I  presumed  meant  that  he  welcomed  us  to  the 
city  and  hoped  that  we  had  plenty  more  pi- 
asters where  those  came  from. 

I  smiled,  and  said  he  was  a  grafter,  which  he 


104  THE  NEAR  EAST 

doubtless  thought  was  an  American  expression 
indicating  that  I  considered  him  a  great  man. 
With  such  mutual  smiles  and  compliments  the 
*' examination"  of  our  baggage  was  concluded 
and  the  porter  led  the  way  to  a  carriage. 

It  is  all  up-hill  in  Constantinople.  Every 
street  is  paved  with  cobblestones  and  a  Turk- 
ish driver  keeps  his  horses  on  the  run.  Ours 
had  understood  when  I  spoke  the  name  of  the 
hotel  to  which  we  were  going,  and  in  a  few 
minutes,  on  about  the  fortieth  bounce,  we 
reached  a  place  where  English  is  spoken  and 
the  charges  are  accordingly  high. 

Constantinople  is  easy  to  understand  geo- 
graphically. The  "Golden  Horn"  is  an  arm 
of  the  Bosphorus  running  westerly,  about  five 
miles  long,  a  mile  wide  at  the  entrance,  and 
tapering  gradually  so  that  it  is  really  the 
shape  of  a  long  trumpet-horn.  The  part  of 
the  city  south  of  the  Golden  Horn  is  Stamboul. 
This  is  the  olil  original  city,  where  the  Greek 
emperors  lived,  with  the  ancient  walls  and 
ruins.  It  is  the  Constantinople  of  history, 
tradition,  religion,  and  crime.  Across  the 
Golden  Horn  to  the  north  is  Galata,  where  the 


CONSTANTINOPLE,   THE  DIFFERENT       105 

big  boats  land,  and  up  on  the  hill  from  Galata 
is  Pera,  where  the  foreigners  live.  Across  the 
Bosphorus  on  the  Asiatic  side  is  Scutari.  All 
of  these  are  merely  names  for  different  parts 
of  the  city  of  Constantinople.  Stamboul  is 
practically  all  Turkish  and  so  is  Scutari.  Ga- 
lata and  Pera  are  primarily  sections  occupied 
by  Greeks,  Armenians,  Jews  and  other  oriental 
races,  including  the  various  and  peculiar  mix- 
tures of  race  which  make  the  whole  Levant 
kin.  Europeans  and  Americans  stay  in  Pera. 
The  population  of  Constantinople  is  about 
1,200,000,  two-thirds  of  whom  are  Turks  liv- 
ing mostly  in  Stamboul  and  Scutari,  and  about 
a  third  are  "the  others."  In  the  daytime 
Armenians,  Greeks,  Jews,  etc.,  go  freely  every- 
where in  Stamboul  on  business,  but  it  is 
healthier  for  them  to  return  to  their  own 
quarters  after  sunset. 

One  of  the  first  local  institutions  which  at- 
tracted my  attention  was  the  money-changers. 
Turkish  money  is  peculiar  and  hard  to  calcu- 
late, but  that  is  not  the  reason  for  the  chang- 
ers. When  you  make  a  purchase  you  are  sup- 
posed to  furnish  the  exact  or  nearly  exact 


106  THE  NEAR  EAST 


change.  The  merchant,  who  usually  has  a 
store  about  four  feet  square  or  smaller,  has 
no  safe  or  money  drawer.  Every  place  you 
go  there  is  a  money-changer,  who  charges  you 
a  very  little  for  changing  your  money.  There 
are  4,000  such  money-changing  shops  in  Con- 
stantinople. Not  one  of  them  is  managed  by 
a  Turk.  All  the  money-changers  are  Greeks, 
Jews,  Armenians,  Arabs,  or  some  nationality 
other  than  the  Turks.  The  Turk  doesn't  care 
for  such  business,  considers  it  beneath  him, 
and  could  not  run  it  successfully  if  he  tried. 

Another  new  one  on  me  is  Turkish  time. 
Instead  of  beginning  at  noon  the  count  starts 
at  sunset.  If  the  sun  sets  today  at  7  o'clock 
our  time,  then  at  8  o'clock  it  will  be  1  o'clock 
Turkish,  at  9  o'clock  it  will  be  2  o'clock,  and 
so  on.  Tomorrow  night  the  variance  will  be 
different.  When  the  sun  sets  at  ten  minutes 
of  seven  the  Turkish  time  begins  then,  and  at 
ten  minutes  of  eight  it  is  one  o'clock,  and  so 
on.  When  a  Turk  promises  to  pay  you  at  ten 
o'clock  you  want  to  find  out  which  kind  of 
time  he  is  figuring  on.     His  month  is  a  moon 


CONSTANTINOPLE,   THE  DIFFERENT       107 

month,  of  28  days,  so  this  montli  of  Ramazan, 
which  has  been  ahiiost  the  same  as  our  August 
this  year,  will  slip  back  next  year  and  in  a  few 
years  will  be  in  the  spring. 

Just  to  complicate  the  situation  in  Con- 
stantinople the  Greeks  and  other  Greek  Cath- 
olic people,  who  make  up  about  one-fourth  of 
the  population  of  Constantinople  and  a  very 
effective  fourth,  use  their  calendar,  which  is 
thirteen  days  behind  ours.  Christmas  with 
us  is  their  December  12tli. 

The  Greeks  and  Armenians  celebrate  the 
same  Sabbath  we  do,  the  Jews  have  theirs  on 
our  Saturday,  and  the  Turks  theirs  on  our 
Friday. 

The  Greek  Catholics  have  a  lot  of  holidays, 
the  Roman  Catholics  have  another  lot,  the 
Turks  have  a  third  installment,  besides  sev- 
eral national  days. 

On  the  Turkish  calendar  this  is  the  year 
1292,  their  count  beginning  with  the  year  that 
Mohammed  skipped  out  of  Mecca. 

You  will  see  that  there  is  plenty  of  oppor- 
tunity to  get  confused  in  Constantinople  over 
dates  and  times.  The  only  advantage  I  can 
see  is  to  the  children,  for  there  are  two  Christ- 


108  THE  NEAR  EAST 

mases,  two  4th  of  Julys  and  any  number  of 
Thanksgiving  and  April  Fool  days. 

There  is  no  city  in  the  world  so  cosmopoli- 
tan as  Constantinople.  London  and  New 
York  are  such  by  population,  but  the  elements 
in  those  cities  do  not  present  such  startling 
variations  in  such  close  proximity  and  in  ap- 
parently such  harmonious  relations.  The  man 
driving  a  donkey  down  the  street  may  be  a 
Turk,  an  Armenian,  a  Greek,  a  Jew,  a  Syrian, 
an  Arab,  a  Kurd,  a  Bulgarian,  an  Egyptian, 
Albanian,  or  any  one  of  a  dozen  or  more  such 
people.  The  sailor  or  the  merchant  or  the 
man  in  the  carriage  may  be  an  Italian,  a  Ger- 
man, an  Englishman,  a  Frenchman,  or  "a 
westerner."  There  is  apparently  no  feeling 
of  race  prejudice,  and  the  color  line  is  not  even 
considered.  Going  down  the  street  you  will 
probably  meet  all  these  peoples  whom  I  have 
named  and  a  lot  more  you  never  heard  of  be- 
fore, but  which  have  a  history  and  perhaps  a 
religion  so  much  older  than  ours  that  it  makes 
us  feel  like  new-comers  sure  enough. 

These  orientals  keep  their  old  habits  and 
their  old  costumes.     The  Arab,  the  Bedouin 


CONSTANTINOPLE,   THE  DIFFERENT       109 


and  Egyptian  are  wearing  the  same  clothes 
that  they  do  in  the  pictures.  The  fez  is  the 
universal  head  covering  and  the  turban  is  as 
common  in  Constantinople  as  a  stiff  hat  is  in 
Kansas  City.  A  straw  hat  or  derby  makes 
people  turn  around  and  look.  By  race,  by 
rehgion  and  by  appearance  Constantinople  is 
certainly  the  most  peculiar  aggregation  of 
queer  folks  that  ever  got  together  since  the 
work  was  interrupted  on  the  Tower  of  Babel. 


The  Turk  Up  Close 

Constantinople,  Aug.  31. 

It  is  sad  to  relate,  but  Constantinople  looks 
better  and  more  picturesque  from  the  Bos- 
phorus  than  it  does  from  its  own  streets. 
Many  of  the  buildings  which  loomed  up  in 
the  distance  like  mansions  of  marble  turn  out 
to  be  rather  plain-looking  houses  of  cement 
with  big  patches  fallen  off.  There  are  frame 
structures  in  Constantinople,  and  I  know  of 
no  other  European  city  which  has  them.  The 
streets  are  narrow,  very  few  being  large  enough 
for  carriages  to  pass,  and  many  are  merely 
long  flights  of  stone  steps  climbing  up  the  hill. 
The  words  street  and  sewer  are  almost  synon- 
ymous. While  all  this  oriental  difference  from 
Western  cities  is  interesting,  to  get  close  is 
often  hard  on  the  olfactory  nerve. 

It  has  been  my  general  experience  that 
picturesque  places  and  people  are  accompanied 
by  unpleasant  smells.  Even  in  Holland, 
where  the  folks  are  clean,  the  odor  of  strong 

(110) 


THE  TURK  UP   CLOSE  111 

soap  can  be  heard  on  every  side.  And  in  the 
East  you  can  put  it  down  as  an  axiom  that 
the  most  picturesque  will  upon  examination 
be  found  to  be  the  most  unsanitary.  When 
I  see  a  man  with  a  costume  like  a  Bible  pic- 
ture I  imagine  he  has  not  taken  a  bath  since 
Easter,  when  he  changed  his  clothes.  The 
glimpses  I  have  had  of  the  alleged  Circassian 
beauties  make  me  believe  that  they  just  var- 
nish over  with  paint  and  powder,  ignorant  of 
the  use  of  soap  and  w^ater.  All  the  stories 
about  the  East  tell  much  of  the  habit  of  "go- 
ing to  the  bath."  My  information  here  is 
that  the  women  go  to  the  bath  not  to  bathe 
but  to  be  perfumed,  to  smoke  cigarettes,  and 
tell  gossip  and  questionable  stories.  In  Amer- 
ica the  women  get  the  news  from  the  papers 
and  at  the  millinery  shops,  but  here  they  must 
rely  upon  the  baths.  I  do  not  know  if  the 
bathhouse  news  is  any  more  reliable  than  that 
in  the  American  papers,  but  it  certainly  must 
be  just  as  interesting. 

The  streets  are  so  narrow  that  carriages 
and  wagons  can  only  be  used  on  a  few.  The 
greatest  part  of  the  local  freight  is  carried 


112  THE  NEAR  EAST 

upon  the  backs  of  men — literally  upon  theii 
backs,  for  they  bend  over  in  shape  triangular 
and  there  is  a  regular  saddle  on  their  back  upon 
which  the  burden  is  placed.  One  of  these 
porters  will  carry  as  much  as  a  couple  of  big 
trunks,  or  a  basket  of  goods  as  tall  as  the 
man,  and  do  it  as  easily  as  an  American  would 
take  home  two  pounds  of  beefsteak.  The 
donkey  is  used  a  great  deal,  the  burden  being 
distributed  on  both  sides,  and  the  led  pack- 
horse  is  very  frequent. 

On  the  wider  streets  buffalo  are  used  like 
oxen — big,  strong  black  fellows  who  move 
slowly  and  ungracefully  but  picturesquely. 
The  passenger  carriages  are  victorias  drawn 
by  horses,  and  the  driver  keeps  his  team  at 
top  speed.  When  your  carriage  goes  down  a 
street  about  fourteen  feet  wide  and  no  side- 
walk, meeting  men  carriers,  donkeys,  horses 
and  footmen,  your  driver  cracking  his  whip 
and  almost  running  over  someone  at  nearly 
every  step,  you  wonder  why  the  crowd  does 
not  mob  you.  But  they  don't,  merely  taking 
it  out  in  profanity  if  they  are  Christians  or 
curses  if  they  are  Moslems. 

There  are  a  few  automobiles  in  Constanti- 


THE   TURK  UP   CLOSE  113 


nople,  very  few,  and  those  I  think  owned  by 
the  government.  An  automobile  has  about 
as  much  propriety  in  Constantinople  as  a 
bulldog  would  have  in  a  basket  of  kittens. 

Up  and  down  every  street  go  the  street 
merchants,  selling  and  crying  their  goods,  ev- 
erything from  Persian  rugs  to  candy.  To  go 
into  business  here  one  does  not  need  a  store 
building  or  an  insurance  policy.  Just  put  your 
stock  of  wares  on  your  back,  walk  the  street 
and  try  to  holler  louder  than  your  competitor. 
No  appropriation  is  needed  for  advertising  so 
long  as  your  lungs  hold  out,  and  there  is  no 
overhead  expense  to  be  figured  into  the  cost. 

To  get  the  idea  of  Constantinople,  imagine 
the  narrow  and  not  clean  streets,  filled  with 
the  carriers,  donkeys,  buffalos,  merchants  and 
noises  I  have  tried  to  describe,  then  add  one 
hundred  per  cent,  and  you  will  have  a  con- 
servative appreciation  of  the  daily  appearance 
of  the  greatest  city  in  the  Near  East. 

On  one  point  I  have  been  greatly  disap- 
pointed. Every  traveler  who  visited  Con- 
stantinople has  written  or  told  of  the  dogs 
which  did  the  scavenger  work,   had  regular 


114  THE  NEAR  EAST 

organizations  with  details  of  dogs  for  each 
street,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  The  dog 
story  is  over.  So  are  the  dogs.  After  the 
Young  Turks  came  into  power  five  years  ago 
they  instituted  several  reforms,  and  one  was 
the  abolition  of  the  dog  street-cleaning  depart- 
ment. It  made  a  lot  of  trouble  for  the  gov- 
ernment, as  many  of  the  Old  Turks  considered 
the  dogs  almost  sacred.  But  some  young 
Turk  thought  up  a  plan  which  worked.  Gangs 
of  men  went  over  the  city,  picked  up  the  dogs 
with  long  wooden  tongs,  and  put  them  into 
carts.  You  can  imagine  how  a  cart-load  of 
dogs  thus  selected  would  fight  each  other. 
The  carts  were  taken  on  a  boat  to  an  island, 
and  those  dogs  which  were  still  alive  were 
turned  loose  with  nothing  to  eat.  They  killed 
one  another,  and  finally  the  last  one  starved. 

Notice  the  fine  philosophy  of  the  Turk.  The 
government  did  not  kill  the  dogs.  The  dogs 
killed  themselves.  This  suited  the  Turkish 
temperament,  whether  as  a  religious  theory  or 
a  bit  of  humor  I  don't  know.  At  any  rate, 
the  dogs  are  all  gone  and  the  government  still 
lives. 

Incidentally  this  gives  you  a  side  light  on 


THE  TURK  UP  CLOSE  115 

the  Turkish  character,  and  shows  how  calmly 
brutal  the  Turk  can  be  without  even  thinking 
such  a  thing  of  himself. 

The  most  impressive  feature  of  Stamboul  is 
not  the  Mosques,  but  the  Bazaars.  About 
four  hundred  years  ago  a  sultan  built  this 
large  one-story  stone  structure,  with  interior 
streets  covered  with  arched  roofs,  and  lighted 
from  the  top.  There  are  4,000  separate  shops 
in  this  one  structure,  and  it  takes  great  nerve 
to  go  through  the  queer  streets  and  not  be 
separated  from  more  money  than  you  in- 
tended. The  best  minds  of  Greece,  Armenia, 
Judea  and  Turkey  are  pitted  against  the  con- 
fused Tourist,  and  they  always  get  him  more 
or  less.  The  "one-price  store"  does  not  exist. 
The  price  of  a  rug  or  a  brass  set,  or  an  antique 
coffee-pot,  or  a  dirk-knife  used  by  Mohammed, 
or  a  cigarette  case  inlaid  with  silver  or  nickel, 
is  always  started  at  a  high  enough  figure  to 
command  respect.  Then  the  "bargaining" 
proceeds  amid  protestations  in  imknown  lan- 
guages, appeals  to  God  as  a  witness,  compli- 
ments in  pigeon  English,  and  assurances,  guar- 
antees and  supplications, — all  on  one  side, — 


116  THE   NEAR   EAST 

and  amusement,  admiration,  confusion,  re- 
fusals, more  refusals  not  so  loud,  concessions, 
wonder,  doubt,  and  final  surrender  on  the 
other. 

They  are  good  merchants,  these  highway- 
men of  the  Bazaars.  They  do  have  very  in- 
teresting stuff,  especially  for  children  and 
Americans.  When  you  get  back  to  the  hotel 
you  are  likely  to  discover  where  you  were 
fooled — but  you  did  have  a  glorious  time. 

Quite  often  in  the  Bazaars  the  hopeful  mer- 
chant will  invite  you  to  take  a  cup  of  coffee. 
Turkish  coffee  on  the  home  place  is  not  so  bad 
as  it  is  in  America.  As  every  one  knows, 
Turkish  coffee  differs  only  in  the  making.  The 
Turk  puts  a  teaspoonful  of  sugar  and  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  finely  ground  coffee  into  enough 
water  for  a  small  cup,  and  boils  the  mixture. 
It  is  served  and  drunk  without  any  settling 
process,  grounds  and  all.  It  is  a  bad  habit 
easily  formed. 

Everywhere  in  Constantinople  a  visitor  is 
treated  pleasantly,  or  he  is  if  he  looks  as  if 
he  had  any  money.     In  this  respect  the  Turks 


THE  TURK  UP  CLOSE  117 

are  a  good  deal  like  New-Yorkers.  One  soon 
gets  over  the  first  apprehension  excited  by  the 
oriental  surroundings,  and  realizes  that  just 
because  he  wears  a  straw  hat  and  a  tailored 
suit  the  Turks  and  the  near-Turks  are  looking 
at  him  with  as  much  curiosity  as  he  is  at  them. 
Of  course  if  he  is  a  woman  he  should  get  off 
the  sidewalk  and  let  the  gentlemen  go  by. 
That  is  oriental  custom.  But  the  Turk  is  po- 
lite and  pleasant  enough  in  his  own  yard,  al- 
though you  realize  that  he  really  considers 
you  a  "dog ;"  and  I  have  narrated  the  humor- 
ous manner  in  which  he  disposed  of  the  dogs. 


The  Turk,  Gentleman 

Constantinople,  Aug.  31. 
The  Turk  is  the  only  real  gentleman  in 
Europe,  measured  by  the  standard  that  a  gen- 
tleman is  a  man  who  doesn't  work  and  won't 
work.  The  Turk  will  fight,  he  will  endure, 
he  will  fast,  he  will  die,  but  he  will  not  work. 
He  does  not  get  the  idea  at  all.  For  genera- 
tions back  he  has  been  a  soldier,  and  a  gov- 
ernor of  conquered  people  who  provided  him 
with  means  of  support,  or  he  killed  them  or 
they  killed  him.  There  was  no  word  in  the 
dictionary  of  his  life  which  meant  hard  labor 
or  wise  management.  His  wants  were  sim- 
ple,— a  wife  or  two  (more  if  he  could  afford 
them),  bread,  tobacco,  and  time  to  think. 
His  education  consisted  in  learning  to  read  the 
Koran  and  in  discussing  [philosophical  ques- 
tions. As  a  governor  of  the  conquered  he 
failed  because  he  had  no  executive  ability,  no 
foresight,  no  common-sense.  His  only  idea 
was  to  get  all  he  could  out  of  the  taxpayers 

(118) 


THE  TURK,  GENTLEMAN  119 

now  and  let  the  future  take  care  of  itself.  He 
built  no  roads,  he  developed  no  mines,  he  in- 
vented no  process  or  machine.  He  merely 
enjoyed  the  life  that  was  before  him,  consid- 
ered all  other  people  beneath  his  notice,  and 
rested  assured  that  in  the  sweet  by-and-by  he 
would  be  in  Heaven  with  Houris  to  comfort 
him  in  the  millions  of  years  to  come.  If  he 
lost  a  fight — it  did  not  matter,  it  was  only  fate. 
If  Bulgaria  won  her  independence — fate.  If 
Italy  took  Tripoli — fate.  He  fought  to  the 
fmish,  but  did  not  worry  about  his  losses,  and 
right  now  when  his  country  is  apparently  go- 
ing to  smash  and  the  high  cost  of  living  has 
reduced  the  ordinary  Turk  to  small  victuals 
and  only  one  wife,  he  calmly  puts  all  the  re- 
sponsibility on  his  God  and  sits  and  meditates 
as  he  did  when  everything  was  coming  his 
way.  Like  the  Christian,  he  believes  that 
"God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  His  wonders 
to  perform,"  but  unlike  the  Christian  he  ac- 
cepts what  happens  as  being  the  will  of  God 
and  therefore  to  be  accepted  by  His  people. 

The  Turkish  race  came  out  of  Asia  at  the 
head  of  the  Mohammedan  procession,  and  has 


120  THE  NEAR  EAST 

always  kept  that  place.  There  are  three  hun- 
dred million  Mohammedans  in  India,  many 
millions  in  Persia  and  Africa,  who  are  not 
Turks,  but  they  recognize  the  Turkish  relig- 
ious leadership.  The  Turk  was  the  soldier 
of  the  Moslem  invasion,  and  won  because  his 
armies  were  united  in  one  religious  belief,  while 
the  Christian  enemies  were  divided  and  hostile 
to  each  other.  His  religion  has  always  been 
the  military  strength  of  the  Turk.  When  he 
came  to  the  era  of  statesmanship  he  was  an 
utter  failure,  and  Turkey  would  have  disap- 
peared from  the  map  a  century  ago  if  it  had 
not  been  held  there  by  the  jealousies  of  Eu- 
rope. The  Bulgarians  could  have  gone  into 
Constantinople  this  year  if  they  had  wished, 
but  they  knew  Russia  and  Austria  would 
never  let  them  keep  that  conquest,  so  they 
stopped.  The  Turk  has  failed  because  he  was 
only  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman,  and  when  he 
was  outnumbered  and  defeated  the  gentleman 
business  did  not  buy  him  anything.  The 
Western  world  has  no  use  for  a  nation  or  a 
man  who  will  not  work,  and  whether  his  fail- 
ure is  due  to  laziness  or  to  fate  makes  no  dif- 
ference to  the  peoj)le  of  the  West.     The  Ori- 


THE  TURK,   GENTLEMAN  121 

cntal  does  not  understand  this  and  will  not 
learn,  so  there  is  nothing  for  him  but  to  get 
off  the  earth,  which  he  is  doing  at  a  very  rapid 
rate. 

The  Turk  washes  his  face  and  hands  five 
times  a  day  and  prays  after  every  ablution. 
He  may  not  wash  the  rest  of  him  once  a  year, 
and  he  often  looks  as  if  he  did  not.  He  cares 
absolutely  nothing  for  such  things  as  sewers, 
pure  water  and  germ  theories.  They  are  buck- 
ing his  Allah  and  he  looks  upon  them  as  her- 
etical even  when  urged  by  some  of  his  own 
leaders.  His  father  was  a  Turk,  his  grand- 
father, and  so  on.  His  mother  was  probably 
not  a  Turk,  but  that  makes  no  difference  in 
his  character,  only  in  the  color  of  his  eyes  and 
hair.  From  his  boyhood  he  has  understood 
that  he  is  the  Real  Thing,  that  Christians  and 
Jews  are  dogs,  and  that  no  matter  what  hap- 
pens his  own  title  is  clear  to  the  Mansions  in 
the  Mohammedan  skies. 

I  have  found  a  great  change  of  feeling  to- 
wards the  Turk  recently.  In  Servia  I  was 
told  that  the  Turk  was  a  gentleman  and  a 


1£2  THE  NEAR  EAST 

scholar  compared  with  a  Bulgarian.  The  Bul- 
gars  prove  bej^ond  a  doubt  that  the  Greeks 
are  more  cruel  in  their  treatment  of  Bulgarians 
than  the  Turks  ever  were.  Greeks  in  Adri- 
anople  are  now  asking  that  that  city  be  left 
in  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  who,  they  say,  are 
better  to  the  Greeks  than  are  the  Bulgarians. 
Every  one  of  these  little  quarreling  states  that 
has  for  years  been  making  us  shed  buckets  of 
tears  over  the  atrocities  of  the  Unspeakable 
Turk  now  testifies  that  the  Turk  is  better  than 
the  Christians  on  the  Balkan  peninsula,  except 
himself. 

The  fact  is  that  judged  by  the  standards  of 
four  centuries  ago  the  Turks  are  all  right,  but 
they  are  still  on  those  standards.  They  had 
the  habit  of  treating  their  Christian  subjects 
kindly,  not  interfering  with  their  religious  wor- 
ship, only  asking  that  the  "dogs"  provide  for 
their  masters.  They  were  the  conquerors,  and 
when  they  came  into  Europe  it  was  the  rule 
everywhere  that  the  conquered  become  the 
slaves  of  the  victors.  Times  have  changed 
since  then,  and  the  Turks  cannot  understand 
what's  the  matter.  They  know  they  have  not 
changed  and  that  they  are  only  carrying  out 


THE  TURK,   GENTLEMAN  123 

the  teachings  of  Molianimcd.  The  Turk  right 
now  is  neither  angry  nor  upset,  but  looks  with 
surprise  upon  the  progress  of  events  and  says 
"kismet,"  which  is  his  foohsh  word  for  fate. 

Every  Turk  wants  an  ofTicial  position,  and 
he  wants  it  to  make  money  for  himself.  He 
will  accept  a  janitorship  in  a  public  building 
rather  than  engage  in  business.  As  soon  as 
he  secures  a  position  he  begins  to  graft,  and 
if  he  did  not  do  so  he  would  be  looked  upon 
with  suspicion.  Let  a  foreigner  try  to  get 
some  business  done  with  the  Turkish  govern- 
ment, and  he  must  begin  to  bribe  with  the 
porter  at  the  outer  gate  and  keep  it  up  at 
every  door  he  enters  clear  to  the  top  of  the 
department.  The  point  of  view  is  exactly  op- 
posite from  ours,  for  the  Turk  makes  no  secret 
of  his  graft  and  no  pretense  of  refusing  it.  He 
usually  pays  some  superior  for  his  job  with 
the  understanding  that  he  will  reimburse  him- 
self with  profit.  It  was  always  the  Turkish 
custom  to  sell  ai)pointments,  and  often  a 
Greek  or  Jew  would  bid  highest  and  get  it. 
And  it  is  the  general  testimony  that  a  Greek 
or  a  Hebrew  could  out-Turk  the  Turks  when 


124  THE  NEAR  EAST 

it  came  to  collecting  taxes  and  not  turning 
them  in  to  the  government. 

It  is  difficult  to  tell  these  folks  apart.  Turks, 
Greeks,  Jews,  Armenians,  Syrians,  Arabs  and 
others  of  the  Near  East  wear  the  same  clothes, 
the  same  fez  hat,  the  same  complexion,  the 
same  smells.  A  friend  who  has  lived  for  years 
in  Constantinople  says  there  is  no  sure  way  of 
distinguishing  the  men  of  these  races,  and  yet 
they  differ  greatly  in  race,  religion,  and  lan- 
guage. At  first  I  thought  everybody  who  wore 
the  fez  was  a  Turk,  or  at  least  a  Moham- 
medan, but  that  was  wrong,  for  the  fez  is 
worn  by  all.  It  is  also  worn  all  the  time,  even 
at  meals,  when  a  hat  is  removed. 

The  Turk  does  not  use  intoxicating  liquor, 
for  it  is  forbidden  by  his  Bible.  Occasionally 
there  is  a  departure  from  the  straight  and 
narrow  path,  and  he  is  allowed  to  drink  beer, 
for  beer  was  not  mentioned  by  Mohammed, 
and  is  disguised  as  "barley  water."  The 
Turk  is  not  quarrelsome,  not  even  over  relig- 
ion, for  he  is  perfectly  willing  that  all  the 
Christians  and  Jews  shall  go  to  hell  if  they 
want  to  do  so — he  will  not  argue.     He  does 


THE  TURK,   GENTLEMAN  125 

love  to  drink  coffee  at  any  and  all  times,  and 
he  consumes  cigarettes  by  the  wholesale.  He 
never  uses  cigars,  and  his  only  pipe  is  the 
nargileh,  with  which  he  draws  the  smoke 
through  water. 

Speaking  of  the  use  of  tobacco,  I  am  re- 
minded of  something  important  I  want  to  say. 
In  Turkey,  as  in  Austria,  Italy  and  several 
other  countries,  the  government  has  a  monop- 
oly on  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  tobacco  in 
all  forms.  The  result  is  poor  tobacco  at  a 
high  price.  Every  time  the  government  needs 
a  little  more  money,  I  suppose  it  mixes  more 
cabbage-leaf  with  the  tobacco.  I  am  in  favor 
of  the  government  doing  a  good  many  things. 
In  Europe  I  have  grown  accustomed  to  the 
government  running  the  railroads,  the  tele- 
graphs and  the  telephones.  I  am  not  disposed 
to  put  any  rocks  in  front  of  the  wheels  of 
Progress.  But  if  our  government  ever  pro- 
poses to  go  into  the  tobacco  business  with  the 
usual  monopoly,  count  me  as  a  reactionary. 
Let  me  warn  every  man  and  every  woman 
who  smokes  or  chews,  that  the  government 
ownership  of  the  tobacco  industry  is  a  delu- 
sion, a  snare,  a  pitfall,  an  atrocity,  or  some- 


126  THE  NEAR   EAST 

tiling  equally  as  bad,   and  should  never  be 
submitted  to  by  a  smoke-loving  people. 

The  "Turkish  cigarettes"  sold  in  America 
are  made  in  Egypt  or  Virginia.  All  that  is 
Turkish  about  them  is  the  name  and  the  price. 
The  gentleman  Turk,  as  he  enjoys  his  smoke, 
does  more  toward  maintaining  his  government 
than  he  intends,  and  he  gets  less  for  his  money 
than  he  would  anywhere  else.  He  sits  and 
smokes  and  thinks,  and  regards  all  the  rest  of 
us  as  mere  scum  of  the  earth,  in  which  he  is 
doubtless  partially  correct. 


The  Harem  Habit 

Constantinople,  Sept.  1. 
In  my  judgment  a  Turkish  woman  has 
mighty  httle  chance  in  this  world,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  Turkish  rehgion  she  has  very  httle 
in  the  next.  From  the  time  a  girl  is  about 
twelve  yesLts  old  she  must  keep  her  face  cov- 
ered from  the  sight  of  men.  If  she  belongs  to 
the  poor  folks  she  is  little  more  than  a  laborer ; 
if  her  family  is  upper-class  she  is  almost  a  toy. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  family  or  a  home 
as  we  understand  the  words.  The  w^omen  do 
not  eat  with  the  men,  and  often  hardly  see 
them.  One  part  of  the  house  is  called  the 
harem,  or  the  woman's  place,  the  other  the 
selamlik,  or  men's  place.  Only  the  father  or 
husband  can  go  into  the  harem,  and  he  can  do 
so  at  any  time  except  when  there  are  women 
visitors.  Other  male  members  of  the  family 
or  men  friends  of  the  man  of  the  house  never 
see  the  faces  or  talk  with  the  women  of  the 
harem.     The  woman  leaves  the  house  only 

(127) 


128  THE  NEAR  EAST 

when  given  permission,  and  then  is  always 
attended.  She  can  put  in  her  time  with  em- 
broidery, gossip,  cigarettes,  candy  and  coffee, 
but  she  must  not  look  at  a  man, — and  get 
caught  at  it. 

Polygamy  is  not  merely  a  Turkish  custom. 
It  has  been  common  in  the  Orient,  and  even 
as  wise  a  man  as  King  Solomon  had  enough 
wives  to  ruin  anyone  but  a  monarch  with  a 
fat  bank  account.  I  am  told  polygamy  is  not 
near  as  general  in  Turkey  as  it  was.  That  is 
because  it  is  an  expensive  habit.  The  main- 
tenance of  a  large  harem  is  as  depleting  to  the 
pocketbook  of  the  boss  of  the  harem  as  it  is 
to  keep  a  stable  of  race-horses  in  our  country. 
But  the  possession  of  several  wives  is  con- 
sidered an  evidence  of  wealth  and  standing. 
As  near  as  I  can  figure  it  out,  to  have  a  harem 
in  Turkey  is  about  like  having  an  automobile 
in  Kansas.  Every  man  has  one  who  can  af- 
ford one,  and  a  good  many  have  them  just  to 
keep  up  appearances  when  they  can't  really 
stand  the  expense.  Sultan  Abdul-Hamid,  who 
was  deposed  five  years  ago,  had  a  large  col- 
lection of  wives.  One  way  for  anyone  who 
wanted  a  favor  to  stand  in  with  Abdul  was 


THE  HAREM  HABIT  129 

to  give  him  a  wife.  He  actually  had  some 
wives  whom  he  never  met.  And  Abdul  had 
a  habit  of  rewarding  a  good  friend  who  had 
loaned  him  money,  or  killed  some  one  for  him, 
by  presenting  him  with  a  bride. 

There  is  no  thought  of  "  marrying  for  love " 
among  the  Turks.  When  a  young  man  reaches 
the  age  of  about  eighteen  his  motlier  goes  wife- 
hunting,  reports  to  father  and  son  what  there 
is  in  the  market,  and  they  pick  out  the  best 
match  possible.  The  bridegroom  does  not  see 
the  bride  until  after  the  ceremony. 

That  is  one  way  to  get  married.  The  other 
way  is  to  buy  a  good-looking  husky  Circassian, 
or  some  other  breed.  This  eliminates  the  ex- 
pense of  a  wedding  and  is  the  way  preferred. 
A  wife  who  comes  to  her  husband  with  prop- 
erty, retains  the  right  to  that  property.  But 
the  slave  wife  does  not  and  cannot  act  inde- 
pendently. If  she  has  children  she  is  no  longer 
a  slave  but  becomes  just  as  legal  a  wife  and 
free  woman  as  anyone. 

The  mother  is  the  important  woman  mem- 
ber of  a  man's  family.  A  boy  is  considered 
of  great  importance,  and  the  mother  rejoices 


130  THE  NEAR  EAST 

over  him  and  makes  much  of  him.  After  he 
is  fourteen  years  old  his  mother  is  the  only 
woman  he  sees.  She  advises  him  and  makes 
his  marriage  for  him.  If  she  then  lives  with 
him  she  is  the  head  of  of  the  harem  and  not 
the  wife,  who  must  look  to  her  own  son  for 
her  future. 

According  to  the  Mohammedan  religion 
when  a  faithful  follower  dies  he  goes  to  Heaven 
to  enjoy  life,  with  beautiful  Houris  to  enter- 
tain him.  There  is  nothing  said  of  meeting 
his  wife  there,  or  of  her  being  there  at  all. 
Mohammed  promised  his  soldiers  a  high  old 
time  if  they  died  in  the  faith.  With  such  a 
religion  there  is  not  much  inducement  for  sew- 
ing societies,  but  every  reason  why  the  men 
should  stick  to  services  and  prayers.  With 
such  a  religion  it  is  easy  to  see  why  a  Turk 
takes  as  many  wives  as  he  wants  and  can 
support,  but  I  wonder  how  long  the  Turkish 
women  will  stand  for  their  own  peculiar  posi- 
tion. 

At  first  it  was  a  little  surprising  to  meet 
women  with  veil  masks,  but  one  soon  got  used 
to  it.     One  grows  accustomed  to  anything — 


THE  HAT? EM  HABIT  131 

veils  or  tight  skirts  as  the  case  may  be.  The 
women  were  usually  in  little  groups  and  at- 
tended, and  would  scurry  along  like  a  covey 
of  quails.  The  harem  apartments  in  the 
houses  have  their  windows  covered  with  lat- 
tice-work. Occasionally  I  would  imagine  that 
from  behind  a  lattice  some  Turkish  lady  was 
watching  the  American  tourists,  but  you  can't 
even  see  a  wink  through  a  lattice.  I  wanted 
to  go  into  a  harem.  A  newspajjer  friend  said 
he  believed  it  could  be  arranged,  but  the  best 
he  could  do  was  to  get  an  opportunity  to  visit 
a  harem  occupied  only  by  a  widow  60  years 
old.  I  remembered  the  stories  of  what  hap- 
pens to  men  who  are  caught  in  harems,  and 
decided  that  I  did  not  care  near  so  much  as  I 
thought  I  did.  I  had  no  desire  to  cause  any 
international  complications,  by  being  sliced  or 
shot  by  a  Turk.  I  did  get  to  see  several  Turk- 
ish women  with  their  veils  up,  but  not  one  of 
them  seemed  to  me  to  be  sufficient  inducement 
to  take  a  chance.  I  was  told  that  the  women 
age  early  and  do  not  develop  good  looks,  even 
if  they  had  a  start  before  they  entered  the 
harem.  With  few  exceptions  they  are  not  ed- 
ucated, and  the  life  of  a  bunch  of  women  be- 


132  THE  NEAR  EAST 

hind  lattices  and  with  nothing  to  stimulate 
them  but  gossip  and  tobacco  is  not  calculated 
to  make  them  as  attractive  as  they  would  be 
if  they  had  a  little  sunshine  in  their  souls,  or 
even  a  recognition  that  they  had  souls. 

There  is  very  little  in  the  talk  of  progress 
among  the  Turkish  ladies.  Firstly,  they  do 
not  know  anything  outside  of  their  present 
condition.  Secondly,  the  present  way  is  the 
style,  and  Turkesses  are  different  from  most 
people  because  they  will  be  stylish.  When 
the  Young  Turks  revoluted  a  few  years  ago 
several  Turkish  ladies  appeared  on  the  street 
without  veils,  only  to  be  beaten  and  chased 
home  by  the  other  ladies. 

I  think  the  lack  of  the  home  is  the  weakness 
of  the  Turk  that  has  brought  him  ruin.  He 
misses  entirely  the  cooperation  and  help  of  a 
wife.  He  has  grown  in  on  himself  for  gener- 
ations. He  is  selfish  and  tyrannical.  His  wife 
does  not  even  dare  say  that  he  smokes  too 
much  and  thus  make  the  suggestion  of  econ- 
omy which  is  universal  elsewhere.     He  rejects 


THE  HAREM  HABIT  133 

the  help  of  the  better  half,  and  the  only  won- 
der is  that  he  has  lasted  as  long  as  he  has. 

Imagine  the  kind  of  a  young  man  you  would 
raise  who  after  fourteen  years  of  age  never 
saw  a  woman's  face  except  his  mother's — at 
least  that  is  what  he  says.  Then  pick  out  for 
him  a  wife  he  never  saw  and  let  him  buy  some 
more  if  he  can  afford  it.  Such  a  young  man 
would  naturally  be  brutal  and  cruel  without 
knowing  the  fact.  Then  imagine  the  girl  you 
would  raise  without  her  talking  to  any  man 
except  her  father,  and  select  a  husband  for 
her  without  her  help.  Give  her  an  education 
in  embroidery  and  fill  the  man  up  with  in- 
struction in  the  Koran  and  its  promise  of 
Heaven  and  Houris  for  men  only.  The  result 
of  such  a  combination  would  be  bankruptcy 
and  failure,  and  that  is  exactly  what  has  hap- 
pened to  the  Turk. 

The  "harem"  has  been  the  center  around 
which  has  revolved  many  a  romance  of  fiction. 
I  doubt  if  there  is  much  romance  in  the  reality. 
No  doubt  there  is  human  nature  left,  and  the 
harem  ladies  will  flirt  if  they  have  a  chance. 
But  behind  the  stone  walls  and  the  lattice- 
work, guarded  by  a  mother-in-law  and  by  a 


134  THE  NEAR   EAST 

eunuch,  a  game  of  drop-the-handkerchief 
would  doubtless  be  regarded  as  a  mortal  sin, 
worth  trying  once.  The  result  is  that  the 
women  do  not  live  long,  and  while  they  are 
doubtless  well  protected  and  fed,  their  lives 
as  such  are  not  eventful  or  effective. 

The  harem  habit  in  Turkey  will  not  be 
broken  unless  the  women  produce  a  leader  for 
themselves  who  will  take  the  soft  side  of  an 
ax  to  the  religion  that  refuses  them  a  place 
in  the  Hereafter  or  the  Now. 


The  ProbEcin  of  the  Turk 

Constantinople,  Sept.  2. 

There  has  been  a  Turkish  problem  in  Europe 
for  five  hundred  years.  At  first  the  problem 
was  to  stop  the  advance  of  the  Moslems  be- 
yond the  Balkans.  Then  the  problem  was  to 
recover  freedom  for  the  subject  Christians  in 
the  Balkans.  For  a  century  the  problem  has 
been  for  the  Christian  governments  to  keep 
the  Turkish  government  alive  in  Europe  in 
order  to  prevent  each  other  getting  the  bulk 
of  the  estate. 

Three  months  ago  the  problem  seemed  to 
be  about  solved  and  the  Turk  driven  into  a 
little  corner  around  Constantinople,  awaiting 
the  final  shove  that  would  send  him  back  to 
Asia  from  whence  he  came  five  centuries  ago. 
The  Balkan  states  had  laid  aside  their  jeal- 
ousies long  enough  to  wallop  the  Turks — 
something  they  should  have  done  long  before. 
But  just  as  this  happened,  the  feud  broke 
forth   again,   and  while  Bulgaria  was  being 

(135) 


136  THE  NEAR  EAST 

pounded  over  the  head  by  Greece  and  Servia 
for  trying  to  grab  too  big  a  share,  the  Turkish 
army  marched  back  into  Adrianople  and  re- 
covered the  really  valuable  part  of  their  losses. 
They  not  only  got  back  Adrianople,  but  they 
regained  their  self-confidence  and  their  nerve. 
They  know  now  that  the  Balkan  allies  will 
not  combine  again  in  this  generation,  and  that 
either  side  will  ally  itself  with  the  Turks  if  the 
Moslems  wish. 

The  Turk  is  back  on  the  map  to  stay  a  while. 
Defeated  in  war  by  Italy  and  then  by  the  Bal- 
kans, he  has  more  compact  territory  and  his 
enemies  are  divided  and  somewhat  discredited. 
Three  months  ago  his  hold  on  the  Bosphorus 
was  weak.  Now  it  is  really  stronger  than  it 
has  been  for  many  years.  The  dislike  of  the 
Moslem  has  been  obscured  among  the  Chris- 
tian neighbors  by  their  hatred  of  each  other, 
and  if  the  Turkish  character  could  only  pro- 
gress in  government  there  would  be  no  further 
crusading  against  him.  The  problem  now  is 
whether  or  not  the  Turk  can  change  his  view- 
point— a  good  deal  like  the  leopard  changing 
his  spots. 


THE  PROBLKM  OF  THE  TURK      137 

And  yet  the  Turks  may  change.  The  Japs 
did  and  the  Chinese  are  doing  so.  Who  will 
say  that  the  greatest  progress  of  the  next 
century  will  not  be  in  Asia,  where  there  are 
hundreds  of  millions  learning  to  telephone, 
ride  on  electric  railways,  and  to  govern  them- 
selves.^ The  Turk  is  an  Asiatic,  and  he  feels 
the  stir.  So  do  his  neighbors  in  Arabia,  Persia, 
and  India.  At  my  hotel  in  Constantinople 
there  was  a  banquet  of  Syrian  public  men, 
about  forty  or  fifty.  Some  wore  the  old  cus- 
tumes  but  most  had  European  dress  suits. 
Their  bill  of  fare  was  that  of  Paris  and  their 
after-dinner  speeches  were  exactly  like  those 
at  the  Kansas  Day  Club  in  Topeka.  Of 
course  I  could  not  understand  their  talk,  but 
I  was  told  that  they  were  organizing  to  pre- 
sent their  demands  for  better  local  government 
and  more  offices  for  Syrians  to  the  Turkish 
ministry.  These  leaders  are  men  of  good  in- 
tellect, and  if  they  get  started  on  the  right 
track  they  will  move  very  rapidly. 

Turkey  has  a  constitution  now,  with  a  par- 
liament elected  by  the  people.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  has  been  dominated  by  selfish  fac- 
tions, and  was  chosen  by  voters  who  did  not 


138  THE  NEAR  EAST 

yet  know  what  they  were  doing.  And  the 
Young  Turk  government  has  not  been  much 
of  an  improvement  over  the  Old  Turk — a  good 
deal  like  a  revolution  in  American  politics  by 
which  the  outs  get  the  offices  and  then  go 
ahead  doing  exactly  what  they  criticized  about 
the  old  ins.  The  fault  is  the  lack  of  that  pa- 
triotism which  desires  to  serve  the  country  for 
the  country's  good  and  not  use  office  as  a 
private  snap.  And  this  fault,  as  I  have  said 
before,  is  temperamental  and  therefore  hard 
to  change — some  say  impossible. 

I  was  talking  with  an  acquaintance  I  made, 
an  Englishman  born  in  Turkey  and  in  business 
here  as  his  father  was  before  him.  He  told 
me  the  Turk  is  really  a  likeable  character, 
personally  honest,  temperate,  dependable  and 
fair,  better  than  his  Christian  neighbors.  My 
English  friend  said  the  bad  qualities  in  the 
Turk  were  his  theory  that  a  public  office  is  a 
chance  to  get  rich,  and  his  disinclination  to 
work.  The  latter  comes  from  the  generations 
which  were  never  anything  but  soldiers  and 
made  their  conquered  subjects  do  the  work, 
and  the  former  results  in  a  government  rotten 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  TURK      139 

all  the  way  through.  These  are  two  serious 
flaws  in  the  charaeter  of  any  people,  but  still 
they  are  considered  about  as  good  as  the 
neighbors  who  regard  themselves  as  civilized 
and  progressive.  Our  Consul  at  Constantino- 
ple is  responsible  for  the  theory  that  the  Turks 
are  going' to  make  a  forward  movement  very 
soon,  and  that  the  next  great  stir  will  be  in 
Asia  and  not  in  Arizona. 

I  did  not  meet  the  Sultan,  Mohammed  the 
Fifth.  If  I  had  waited  until  Friday  I  could 
have  seen  him  go  to  church,  but  that  is  not 
near  the  circus  parade  it  was  under  the  old 
sultan,  Abdul-IIamid.  Abdul  w^as  about  the 
last  of  the  sultans  of  the  kind  that  history  and 
romance  will  tell  about.  The  present  sultan 
is  a  nice  old  man  who  spent  the  25  years  of 
his  life  prior  to  getting  this  place  in  close  con- 
finement, not  even  being  allowed  to  read  the 
newspapers.  Take  a  man  who  does  not  know 
what  has  happened  for  25  years,  and  give  him 
a  rather  studious  disposition,  and  he  does  not 
make  a  Turkish  sultan  such  as  you  read  al)out. 
Abdul  kept  Mohammed  in  jail  and  now  Mo- 
hammed has  Abdul  in  the  same  situation. 


140  THE  NEAR  EAST 


But  Mohammed  is  content  to  let  his  ministers 
do  the  governing  and  thus  hold  his  job  and 
keep  out  of  jail.  The  dominant  political 
party,  the  Young  Turks,  manages  affairs  and 
has  not  permitted  any  second  parliamentary 
election.  Nobody  is  supposed  to  know  where 
the  old  Sultan  Abdul  is,  but  everybody  does. 
You  can't  confine  a  man  with  a  bunch  of 
wives  and  not  have  the  news  get  out,  even  in 
Turkey. 

Abdul-Ham  id  was  suspicious  and  ran  his 
own  government.  If  you  wanted  to  bribe 
anybody  you  could  go  right  to  the  Sultan. 
He  put  all  the  money  he  could  scrape  together 
into  his  own  pocket,  and  even  now  is  said  to 
have  large  balances  in  European  banks,  suf- 
ficient to  enable  him  to  organize  a  big  revolu- 
tion if  he  could  get  his  freedom  and  his  check- 
book. Only  a  few  of  Abdul's  wives  exercised 
tlie  privilege  of  remaining  with  him,  and  a 
large  colony  of  his  associates  in  matrimony 
are  now  supported  by  the  government  in  one 
of  the  palaces  on  the  Bosphorus. 

Up  to  five  years  ago  the  Turkish  army  was 
composed  entirely  of  Moslems.     Every  Turk 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  TURK      141 

had  to  serve  three  years  and  every  non-Mos- 
lem subject  had  to  pay  a  tax  instead.  The 
revolution  brought  the  dream  of  all  citizens 
of  Turkey  being  treated  alike,  regardless  of 
religion.  Christians  were  compelled  to  do 
military  service.  The  result  was  that  when 
the  war  began  many  Greeks  preferred  their 
motherland  to  their  adopted  country.  I 
talked  with  a  Greek  merchant  who  told  me 
with  some  pride  of  his  two  sons  who  bolted 
the  Turkish  army  and  joined  the  Greek.  Such 
a  condition,  coupled  with  poor  preparation  and 
rotten  management,  demoralized  the  Turkish 
troops  from  the  start  and  accounts  partly  for 
the  poor  showing  they  made  against  the  Bal- 
kaners. 

On  the  European  shore  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  looking  from  the  high  hills  across  to  Asia 
are  two  institutions  which  are  doing  their 
part  in  solving  the  Turkish  problem,  the 
American  School  for  Girls  and  Roberts  Col- 
lege. They  are  maintained  on  funds  furnished 
by  Americans  who  want  to  make  their  money 
count  for  something  in  the  world's  advance- 
ment.    Roberts  College  has  been  in  existence 


142  THE  NEAR  EAST 

forty  years,  and  has  graduates  all  over  the  Le- 
vant. This  year  over  500  young  men,  mostly 
Turks,  Bulgarians  and  Greeks,  will  be  edu- 
cated on  the  theory  that  they  should  make 
this  world  a  better  world,  and  along  the  same 
lines  that  they  study  in  Kansas,  from  mathe- 
matics to  football.  It  is  a  great  step  when 
you  get  a  young  Turk  to  think  that  book 
knowledge  is  better  than  loafing  in  front  of  a 
cafe,  or  teach  an  Albanian  that  football  is  a 
better  sport  than  sticking  a  dirk  into  an  en- 
emy. The  college  in  this  country  not  only 
has  to  furnish  education,  but  it  must  change 
the  viewpoint  and  habits  of  its  students.  This 
is  not  so  hard  to  do,  for  ambition  is  found  in 
every  race,  and  when  the  focus  is  put  in  the 
right  spot  the  light  will  reach  there. 

An  American  in  Constantinople  will  note, 
with  regret,  that  the  flag  of  his  country  does 
not  appear  in  the  harbor.  He  will  find  that 
the  banking  business  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
English,  French,  and  Germans.  All  the  im- 
portant lines  of  trade  are  owned  and  managed 
by  other  people  than  the  Turks,  but  not  by 
Americans.     The  United  States  does  not  figure 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  TURK      143 

in  the  concert  of  the  Powers  that  is  eternally 
mixing  into  the  affairs  of  the  government. 
But  the  great  school  for  girls,  the  only  real 
college  for  boys,  are  under  the  stars  and  stripes 
with  their  instruction  in  our  language  and  by 
our  young  men  and  women.  When  the  Amer- 
ican looks  upon  these  things  his  heart  will  beat 
with  a  higher  patriotism,  for  while  the  other 
nations  of  the  West  are  making  dollars,  the 
Americans  are  helping  to  make  men  and 
women  whose  influence  will  grow  and  be  the 
greatest  factor  in  solving  the  Turkish  problem. 


Greece  Up  to  Date 


Amon^  the  Greeks 

Athens,  Greece,  Sept.  5. 

One  naturally  brings  a  lot  of  sentiment  to 
Greece.  The  country  he  is  visiting  is  not  the 
projecting  corner  of  the  Balkan  peninsula 
ruled  by  King  ConsLantine,  but  the  land  of 
which  Homer  sang,  where  Pericles  buildcd, 
and  Socrates  and  other  great  men  thought  out 
things  which  our  centuries  since  have  not  im- 
proved. 

When  the  Egyptian  boat  upon  which  we 
came  across  the  ^Egean  Sea  neared  the  coast 
of  Greece,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  shores 
should  look  different  and  the  sky  should  be 
bluer  than  in  the  lands  from  which  we  came. 
But  the  mountain-sides  w^ere  bleak  and  there 
were  no  electric  signs  on  the  harbors  from 
which  the  Greeks  used  to  go  out  and  conquer 
or  colonize  all  the  world  they  knew.  We 
steamed  into  the  port  of  Piricus,  selected  by 
Themistocles,  the  great  Athenian  admiral,  as 
the  port  of  Athens,  and  afterward  connected 

(117) 


148  THE  NEAR  EAST 

with  the  city  eight  miles  away  by  long  walls. 
It  was  hard  to  realize  the  fact,  but  off  at  the 
left  were  the  strait  and  island  of  Salamis  where 
Xerxes  lost  his  fleet  2,400  years  ago.  At  one 
side  was  the  hill  where  Xerxes  took  his  seat 
to  enjoy  the  forthcoming  destruction  of  the 
Greek  navy,  the  barrier  to  the  conquest  of  the 
little  land  he  had  sworn  to  punish.  A  modern 
warship  could  scarcely  turn  around  in  the 
water  where  the  great  navies  of  the  then  world 
met,  and  the  only  way  to  re-people  the  bay 
with  Persians,  Athenians  and  Spartans  was  to 
close  the  eyes  and  forget  the  present  geogra- 
phy. A  ship  in  those  days  was  no  bigger  than 
a  large  row-boat  or  a  small  fishing  vessel  now. 
Navies  were  constructed  after  wars  were  be- 
gun. The  hostile  fleets  simply  rushed  into 
each  other  and  the  combatants  fought  until 
one  side  took  to  the  water  to  be  killed,  or 
made  slaves.  But  these  latter  facts  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  case.  The  Greeks  stopped 
the  Persians,  ruined  their  reputation,  and  cap- 
tured enough  goods  and  personal  property  to 
propitiate  all  the  gods  in  Greekdom. 

The  harbor  has  not  been  improved  much 
since   the   time   of   Themis tocles.     Not   very 


AMONG  THE  GREEKS  140 


large  boats  still  have  to  anchor  some  distance 
from  land,  and  passengers  are  required  to  pay 
a  little  additional  fee  for  entering  upon  the 
sacred  soil. 


As  we  rode  in  the  little  landing-boat  toward 
the  shore,  a  Greek  in  uniform  spoke  up : 

"American?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered. 

"Bully,"  said  he,  and  I  knew  he  had  been 
in  our  fair  land. 

"When  are  you  going  back  to  America?" 
I  asked. 

"Just  as  soon  as  I  get  this  uniform  off. 
America  has  'em  skinned." 

This  was  one  of  the  60,000  Greeks  who  hur- 
ried home  from  America  to  get  into  the  fight 
with  Turkey.  I  was  told  everywhere  that 
these  American  Greeks  were  the  finest  fighting 
force  in  the  army,  and  were  always  put  on  the 
hard  jobs.  Of  course  men  who  will  come 
4,000  miles  to  fight  for  their  country  would 
make  a  reputation  like  that.  There  were  reg- 
iments of  American  Greeks  where  English  was 
almost  as  commonly  spoken  as  the  Greek — 
especially  in  emergencies  where  strong  words 


150  THE  NEAR  EAST 

are  required.  There  is  no  language  in  the 
world  like  ours  for  profanity.  The  heathen 
Turks  do  not  swear  at  all,  and  the  Europeans 
generally  have  mild  and  ladylike  ejaculations 
which  hardly  take  the  place  of  cuss- words. 
There  is  no  way  in  which  a  Greek  can  say 
"damn"  with  the  emphasis  put  upon  it  in 
America,  and  an  invitation  to  go  to  the  lower 
regions  in  Latin  or  Greek  would  not  make  any- 
body fight.  One  result  is  that  all  over  Greece 
the  rising  generation  has  picked  up  English 
phrases  from  the  American  Greeks,  and  any- 
where you  go  you  will  be  greeted  with  "Good- 
night," "Betcherlife,"  "Go  to  hell,"  and  other 
slang  whose  origin  you  recognize. 

My  first  Greek  acquaintance  was  from  Gary, 
Indiana,  where  he  had  a  "business."  My  next 
was  from  Chicago,  where  he  owned  a  grocery 
and  saloon.  Such  men  as  these  have  carried 
the  name  of  Greece  to  the  furthermost  parts, 
just  as  their  old  ancestors  did  when  they  col- 
onized and  conquered  everything  from  the 
Bosphorus  to  Sicily. 

Athens  is  not  a  new  town.  It  was  started 
by  Theseus,  about  1250  B.  C.     The  location. 


AMONG  THE  GREEKS  151 

was  considered  good,  close  to  the  sea,  and 
with  high  hills  to  which  the  people  could  go 
on  picnics  and  to  escape  from  the  enemy. 
During  the  next  1,000  years  the  history  of 
Athens  was  a  series  of  wars  with  the  neighbors 
and  development  of  culture  at  home.  No 
Athenian  would  work.  He  left  such  things 
to  the  women  and  to  the  slaves.  When  he 
was  not  fighting  the  Spartans  he  was  arguing 
or  thinking,  and  talking  about  himself.  The 
government  was  usually  a  democracy,  with 
the  initiative,  the  referendum,  the  recall  and 
a  lot  of  other  curleyques  which  have  been  dug 
up  recently  and  pronounced  novelties.  The 
Athenians  were  progressive,  always  for  some- 
thing new,  and  always  telling  how  much  better 
they  were  than  other  people.  They  made 
their  city  the  center  of  the  world  for  culture, 
so  that  when  Greece  went  into  the  discard  as 
a  province  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  victorious 
Romans  adopted  all  the  Athenian  ideas  of 
philosophy  and  art  they  could  understand,  and 
stole  all  the  statues  and  sculpture  they  could 
carry  away. 

From  that  time  until  the  19tli  centurj^  Ath- 
ens never  amounted  to  much.     In  fact,  its 


152  THE   NEAR   EAST 

location  is  not  good  for  trade,  and  when  Greece 
secured  independence  the  Athens  of  olden 
times  had  disappeared  and  only  a  town  of 
shanties  existed  on  the  spot.  Sentiment  caused 
the  Greeks  to  make  Athens  their  capital,  and 
it  has  been  rebuilt  in  less  than  a  century  since. 
Much  money  has  been  spent  by  the  govern- 
ment and  by  rich  Greeks  who  made  their  for- 
tunes elsewhere,  and  Athens  is  now  a  credit- 
able city,  with  many  good  buildings  erected 
in  line  with  the  art  of  the  ancient  Athens. 

The  name  of  Greece  is  not  Greece,  but  ac- 
cording to  its  own  official  language  "Hellas," 
and  the  king  signs  his  name  "King  of  the 
Hellenes." 

The  country  is  very  poor.  More  than  two- 
thirds  of  the  soil  is  not  cultivated  and  cannot 
be.  The  Greek  farmers  are  away  behind  those 
in  other  countries,  but  as  their  land  is  about 
all  steep  mountain-side  and  rocks,  it  is  not 
easy  to  suggest  any  improvements  except  emi- 
gration. Greece  is  all  mountain  and  seacoast, 
no  place  being  more  than  fifty  miles  from  the 
salt  water.  Its  people  are  and  always  have 
been  good  sailors  and  merchants.     The  result 


AMONG  THE  GREEKS  153 

is  that  there  are  more  Greeks  in  Turkey  than 
in  Greece,  and  they  are  the  dominant  business 
factor  in  nearly  all  the  cities  of  the  Levant. 
They  have  gone  in  every  direction,  and  they 
are  usually  successful,  but  they  never  get  over 
being  Greeks.  Jews  are  everywhere  in  the 
East  conceded  to  be  the  great  commercial  peo- 
ple. But  there  are  no  Jews  in  Greece.  The 
Hellenes  can  beat  them  at  their  own  game. 

In  addition  to  the  peninsula  of  Greece  there 
are  hundreds  of  islands,  many  of  them  large 
and  important,  which  belong  to  the  kingdom. 
These  islands  are  inhabited  by  Greeks,  and 
have  naturally  fallen  from  the  Turk's  hands 
into  those  where  they  belong. 

A  Greek  who  lives  in  Alexandria,  Egypt, 
furnished  the  funds  for  the  erection  of  the 
Stadium  on  the  site  of  the  old  amphitheatre 
where  Greeks  and  Romans  contended  in  ath- 
letic games  and  where  gladiators  and  wild  an- 
imals were  wont  to  kill  each  other.  It  is  the 
most  magnificent  grand-stand  I  ever  saw,  en- 
tirely constructed  of  marble,  and  seating  70,- 
000  people.  It  is  not  so  graceful  in  its  lines 
as  the  baseball  park  in  New  York,   where 


154  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Christy  Matliewson  is  king,  but  its  marble 
whiteness  is  more  impressive.  This  Stadium 
was  used  for  the  revival  of  the  Olympic  games 
a  few  years  ago.  It  is  a  splendid  opening  for 
a  city  baseball  league,  but  so  far  as  I  could 
learn  the  Greeks  have  no  ball  games  or  sports 
like  ours  which  develop  the  rising  generation. 
They  go  in  for  running,  wrestling  and  throw- 
ing the  hammer,  none  of  which  are  good  all- 
around  sports. 

But  the  Greeks  are  a  fine-looking  lot  of  men. 
Athens  is  now  filled  with  soldiers  home  from 
the  war  and  waiting  for  their  discharge.  They 
are  clean,  well-built  fellows,  and  attractive  in 
their  enthusiasm.  Sixty  thousand  of  them  did 
not  return,  the  price  paid  for  the  redemption 
of  a  large  part  of  ancient  Thrace. 

The  national  costume  which  many  appar- 
ently sensible  men  wear  consists  of  a  white 
skirt  nearly  to  the  knee,  tight  white  trousers, 
embroidered  open  jacket.  It  makes  a  Greek 
statesman  look  like  a  lady  circus-rider,  but  he 
wears  it  in  imitation  of  the  good  old  days  and 
is  hapfjy.  The  women  wrap  scarfs  around 
their  heads  and  follow  a  classic  style  of  dra- 
pery, which  is  a  great  improvement  over  the 


AMONO    THE   GREEKS  155 

Turkish  trousers  of  the  Ottoman  and  the  tight 
skirts  of  the  Western  world. 

I  went  to  the  Areopagus,  or  Mars  Hill, 
where  Paul  began  his  revival  work  in  Athens. 
It  is  a  hillside  on  vrhich  the  Greeks  were  ac- 
customed to  gather  and  talk  politics,  philoso- 
phy and  religion.  I  thought  it  would  be  ap- 
propriate to  make  a  speech  there  myself,  and 
I  secured  an  audience  by  giving  a  small  boy 
ten  leptas,  equivalent  to  two  cents.  Then  I 
began:  "Men  of  Athens."  On  reflection  I 
changed  to  get  a  little  nearer  the  facts,  and 
started  again:  "Man  of  Athens."  The  boy 
backed  off,  even  his  Greek  curiosity  and  the 
tip  not  overcoming  his  dread  of  a  crazy  man. 
But  I  continued,  and  told  the  men  of  Athens 
what  I  thought  of  them.  My  audience  re- 
mained sufficiently  near  to  draw  another  coin. 
I  had  accomplished  one  of  my  early  desires, 
to  stand  on  IMars  Hill  where  Paul  caught  the 
crowd  by  his  presentation  of  "the  unknown 
Odd,"  whom  the  Greeks  worshipped  for  fear 
they  might  have  missed  one  in  their  official 
god  Hst. 


The  Acropolis  of  Athens 

Athens,  Greece,  Sept.  6. 

All  that  is  left  of  the  Athens  v^^e  have  always 
known  is  the  Acropolis,  a  few  ruins  of  temples, 
and  the  view  of  the  sea.  The  rest  is  sentiment 
and  imagination. 

If  3^ou  think  it  over  you  will  remember  that 
Greece  and  Athens  disappeared  from  view 
about  the  third  century  of  the  Christian  Era 
and  never  really  came  up  again  until  the  19th 
century.  Sixteen  hundred  years  is  a  long 
time,  and  a  great  deal  hapi^ened  to  Greece 
and  Greek  things.  First  came  the  Romans, 
who  carried  away  to  Italy  statues  and  deco- 
rated marble  to  embellish  their  public  build- 
ings and  their  private  houses.  Then  came  the 
early  Christians,  who  considered  it  a  religious 
duty  to  destroy  the  pagan  temples  and  smash 
the  statues  of  the  pagan  gods.  After  that  del- 
uge the  Turks  arrived,  with  the  sacred  pur- 
pose of  demolishing  both  the  pagan  and  the 
Christian  temples,  and  carrying  off  to  their 

(156) 


)l  //(//.'    11(1  iniiiiiN's  cliib.s-  ill  aiiciciil  Al/iciifi! " 


THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  ATHENS      157 

mosques  in  other  cities  any  articles  left  that 
would  add  beauty  to  those  structures.  The 
Greeks  themselves,  run  over  and  conquered 
by  Bj'zantines,  Goths,  Crusaders,  Turks  and 
Venetians,  having  no  national  or  religious  life 
of  their  own,  lapsed  into  a  condition  in  which 
they  did  not  appreciate  the  ancient  Greek  or 
anything  else  that  they  could  not  eat  or  drink. 
For  IGOO  years  Athens  was  considered  a  legit- 
imate field  for  rol)bery  and  larceny,  and  there 
was  no  one  to  protect  the  Greece  of  Pericles 
and  Phidias.  The  only  wonder  is  that  the 
few  columns  left  were  not  taken  away  or  de- 
stroyed, and  no  doubt  if  the  Acropolis  had 
been  movable  or  the  sea  inflammable,  even 
the  hill  and  the  view  which  delighted  the  heart 
of  the  ancients  would  have  also  disappeared. 

Every  Grecian  city  had  an  "acropolis," 
which  is  a  hill  with  a  fort  and  a  temple.  To 
this  hill  the  people  ran  when  the  enemy  came 
upon  them,  and  up  this  hill  the  Greeks  would 
march  with  their  sacrifice  to  the  god  or  goddess 
who  protected  them.  The  Athenians  had  a 
great  hill,  and  talked  about  it  so  mucli  and  so 
beautifully  that  now  when  one  speaks  of  "the 


158  THE  NEAR   EAST 

Acropolis"  he  means  the  hill  of  Athens,  origin- 
all}^  a  fortress,  always  the  temple  of  Pallas 
Athene,  the  goddess  who  looked  after  the  in- 
terests of  the  Athenians  when  she  was  not 
otherwise  engaged. 

The  Acropolis  is  a  hill  which  rises  abruptly 
from  the  plain  about  500  feet.  On  three  sides 
it  is  too  precipitous  to  climb  for  the  last  200 
feet,  while  on  the  fourth  side  the  ascent  is 
tolerably  easy  though  steep.  On  one  slope  of 
the  Acropolis  were  the  theatres  and  on  another 
temples,  and  up  the  passable  side  went  a  road 
upon  which  the  procession  moved  when  it  was 
time  to  propitiate  the  goddess  to  keep  her  in 
a  good  humor  or  to  get  her  to  do  something 
for  the  home  team.  The  top  of  the  Acropolis 
was  and  is  about  ten  acres  in  extent,  and  al- 
most level.  Around  the  top  was  the  wall  for 
defense,  first  wood  and  then  marble,  and  in- 
side was  the  Parthenon,  the  greatest  temple 
of  heathendom. 

The  Acropolis  has  had  three  ages :  The 
wooden  age  before  Pericles,  the  golden  age  of 
Pericles,  and  the  down-shoot  most  of  the  time 
since.     During  the  first  period  it  was  more  of 


THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  ATHENS      159 

a  fortress,  and  had  wooden  walls.  When  the 
Persians  threatened  to  wipe  the  Greeks  off  the 
earth  the  Athenians  sent  to  the  oracle  at  Del- 
phi for  advice,  and  were  told  to  seek  refuge 
in  the  wooden  walls.  Those  who  took  this  to 
mean  the  wooden  ships  were  correct  in  their 
guess,  while  those  who  accepted  the  literal 
interpretation  and  sought  refuge  behind  the 
wooden  walls  on  the  Acropolis  were  killed  by 
the  Persians. 

Then  came  the  victories  of  the  Greeks  over 
their  enemies  and  the  leadership  of  Athens, 
and  Pericles.  It  was  the  latter  gentleman  who 
furnished  the  brains  and  found  the  money  to 
start  "the  golden  age"  policy  in  Athens.  He 
had  the  assistance  of  the  great  sculptor  Phidias, 
he  had  a  lot  of  money  which  had  been  left  in 
Athens  by  a  neighboring  city,  and  he  had  an 
army  of  slave  workers  gathered  in  the  success- 
ful wars  he  waged.  He  had  trouble  with  the 
taxpayers,  he  was  assailed  viciously  by  the 
politicians  who  failed  to  get  jobs  in  the  con- 
struction, and  his  private  life  was  not  what  it 
should  have  been.  But  he  was  a  great  man, 
and  he  never  let  up  until  he  had  Athens  deco- 


160  THE  NEAR   EAST 

rated  with  temples  and  parks  and  the  Acropo- 
hs  just  about  the  greatest  wonder  of  the  world. 

The  Parthenon,  most  celebrated  of  Greek 
temples,  was  erected  under  the  direction  of 
Phidias.  It  was  described  by  ancient  writers, 
and  the  large  portion  which  now  stands  can 
be  filled  in  with  a  fair  imagination.  There 
were  62  large  and  52  small  supporting  col- 
umns, on  a  platform  228  feet  long  and  100 
feet  wide.  The  pediments  contained  about  50 
life-sized  statues  and  the  frieze  was  524  feet 
long,  about  39  feet  above  the  ground,  and 
depicted  in  sculpture  scenes  of  Greek  worship 
and  life.  There  were  groups  of  gods,  battle 
scenes,  and  carved  stories  of  the  olden  time. 
A  culmination  of  art  was  a  statue  by  Phidias 
of  the  Virgin  Goddess,  as  Pallas  was  called, 
42  feet  high,  of  gold  and  ivory,  and  costing 
the  equivalent  of  $750,000. 

Most  brilliant  colors  were  used  in  decorat- 
ing walls,  friezes  and  interior.  The  roof  was 
of  tiJe?  of  Parian  marble.  The  entire  build- 
mg  was  of  marble.  In  fact,  the  temple  was 
*^  scrumptious."  and  was  reckoned  the  greatest 
work  of  art  in  the  greatest  age  of  art  the  world 


THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  ATHENS      161 

has  known.  It  is  a  little  humiliating  to  admit 
that  these  old  Greeks  2300  years  ago,  without 
the  modern  inventions,  machinery  or  discov- 
eries, and  without  the  influence  of  women's 
clubs  or  Carnegie  foundations,  did  a  work 
which  no  one  since  has  equalled  for  artistic 
greatness  in  execution  or  in  effect. 

The  Parthenon  was  dedicated  in  the  year 
438  B.  C.  You  can  imagine  the  processions, 
the  sacrifices,  the  speeches  and  the  glowing 
accounts  in  the  daily  papers.  Pericles  had 
succeeded  in  making  Athens  the  foremost  city 
in  the  world  he  knew,  and  he  had  kept  control 
of  the  government  of  the  democracy  as  no 
other  Athenian  statesman  was  able  to  do. 

The  Acropolis  was  adorned  with  other  tem- 
ples, and  there  are  said  to  have  been  1,500 
statues  in  the  open  court  on  the  hill.  The 
Acropolis  had  lost  its  character  as  a  fortress 
and  was  devoted  to  religion  and  art. 

The  Parthenon  remained  a  temple  to  Pallas 
Athene  until  the  old  gods  lost  out  and  Chris- 
tianity was  established.  In  the  fifth  century 
it  was  consecrated  as  a  Christian  church,  and 
the  interior  remodeled  but  not  improved. 


162  THE  NEAR  EAST 

In  1460  the  Turks  converted  it  into  a  mosque 
and  built  a  minaret  at  one  corner. 

In  1687  the  Venetians  captured  Athens  and 
the  Turkish  garrison  took  to  the  AcropoHs. 
They  stored  their  gunpowder  in  the  Parthe- 
non. A  Venetian  bomb  ignited  the  powder, 
and  most  of  the  Parthenon  went  into  the  air 
along  with  the  bodies  of  the  Turks.  That 
left  the  top  of  the  Acropolis  covered  with 
broken  columns,  statues  and  marble  orna- 
ments. 

Of  course  the  Turks  did  not  try  to  restore 
the  structure,  and  for  more  than  a  century  the 
debris  lay  like  a  mass  of  rubbish.  Finally,  in 
1801,  Lord  Elgin,  British  minister  to  Turkey, 
got  the  Sultan's  permission  "to  remove  a  few 
blocks  of  stone  with  inscriptions  and  figures." 
Under  that  kind  of  a  permit  he  transported 
all  the  good  statues  and  friezes  he  could  find, 
and  the  best  part  of  the  Parthenon  is  now  the 
most  valuable  possession  of  the  British  mu- 
seum in  London. 

Since  Greece  became  an  independent  coun- 
try, in  1829,  its  government  has  gradually 
gone  through  the  pieces  that  Lord  Elgin  did 
not  find  or  could  not  move.     The  columns 


THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  ATHENS      163 

have  nearly  all  been  re-erected  and  the  form 
of  the  old  temple  restored,  but  with  little  of 
the  ornamentation.  The  hill  is  still  a  quarry 
of  hands  and  legs  and  heads  of  marble  figures, 
slabs  of  marble  paving  and  portions  of  marble 
walls.  Much  has  been  done  gathering  up  the 
remains,  but  a  great  deal  more  is  to  be  done, 
and  where  important  originals  have  been  taken 
to  London  copies  have  sometimes  been  made 
in  plaster  for  the  museum  in  Athens. 

The  colors  are  gone,  the  beautiful  marble 
forms  have  disappeared  or  are  mutilated,  the 
wonderful  works  of  the  sculptor  are  defaced. 
In  spite  of  all  that,  the  Parthenon  is  yet  one  of 
the  greatest  artistic  works  and  fully  realizes 
for  the  tourist  as  it  does  for  the  scholar,  the 
approval  and  praise  it  received  more  than 
2,000  years  ago. 

Another  temple  on  the  Acropolis  would  have 
been  a  world's  wonder  if  it  had  not  been  built 
so  near  the  Parthenon.  The  Erechtheum  oc- 
cupies the  spot  where  the  goddess  Pallas  and 
the  river  god  Poseidon  had  their  dispute  as 
to  which  should  possess  Athens.  They  left  it 
to  Zeus,  w^ho  said  the  town  should  go  to  the 


164  THE  NEAR  EAST 

one  who  performed  the  best  miracle.  Posei- 
don struck  his  trident  in  the  ground  and  pro- 
duced a  spring  of  salt  water.  Pallas  punched 
the  ground  with  her  spear  and  brought  forth 
an  olive  tree.  Zeus  evidently  preferred  olives 
to  water,  for  he  gave  the  place  to  the  goddess. 
During  pagan  times  the  olive  tree  and  the 
spring  could  be  seen  in  this  Erechtheum. 
When  the  Persians  captured  Athens  and  de- 
stroyed the  first  temples  on  the  Acropolis  they 
burned  down  the  olive  tree,  but  it  came  up 
again  in  a  single  night.  There  was  no  doubt 
of  the  story  being  true,  for  there  was  the  olive 
tree. 

The  top  of  the  Acropolis  was  paved  with 
marble  blocks.  This  was  nearly  all  used  by 
the  Turks  to  make  walls  for  their  fortress. 

Anyone  wishing  a  detailed  description  of  the 
Parthenon  and  the  rest  of  the  show  on  the 
Acropolis  must  look  to  some  writer  who  un- 
derstands the  language  of  art.  Two  days  ago 
I  was  so  ignorant  that  I  did  not  know  a  Pedi- 
ment from  a  Metope,  and  was  not  sure  whether 
a  frieze  was  something  to  eat  or  was  worn  under 
the  base  of  a  statue.    I  have  learned  more  about 


THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  ATHENS      165 

sculpture  in  twenty -four  hours  than  I  can  re- 
member in  six  months.  I  can  tell  a  bas-relief 
from  a  tenor  and  a  triglyph  from  a  corner- 
stone. But  I  am  sure  no  one  would  believe 
that  I  had  absorbed  so  much  of  the  details  of 
art,  and  therefore  I  refrain.  All  that  I  will 
say  is  that  the  Acropolis  is  a  great  hill  and 
could  not  be  moved  to  the  British  museum. 
Therefore  it  has  been  saved  to  its  native  land. 


The  Old  Greeks  and  the  New 

Athens,  Sept.  8. 
The  difficulty  the  tourist  has  in  Greece  is 
to  make  the  modern  match  with  the  ancient 
and  the  actual  with  the  ideal.  Aside  from  the 
sculpture  and  architecture,  there  is  nothing 
now  which  quite  comes  up  to  the  description 
of  the  then.  I  suppose  much  of  this  comes 
from  the  obliteration  of  the  Greece  we  read 
about  by  the  Romans,  the  Slavs  and  the  Turks 
for  2,000  years.  Also,  I  think  a  good  deal  of 
the  descent  is  from  the  fact  that  the  Greeks 
told  their  own  story  and  used  the  poetic  li- 
cense and  exaggeration  which  were  general 
with  the  people  of  ancient  times,  character- 
istics which  are  happily  no  more.  I  could 
write  of  Kansas,  and  what  I  would  say  would 
be  the  plain  unvarnished  truth,  without  boast- 
ing or  bragging.  The  same  would  be  true  of 
any  other  Kansas  writer.  I  have  often  no- 
ticed that  in  the  descriptions  of  our  climate, 
our  crops,  our  wondrous  beauties  of  nature 

(166) 


THE  OLD   GREEKS  AND   THE  NEW         1G7 

and  the  phenomenal  progress  of  our  citizen- 
ship, we  Americans  never  exaggerate.  Our 
journalists  can  describe  our  battles  or  our  po- 
litical campaigns  and  never  depart  from  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  of  fact.  Our  writers 
report  our  ball  games  and  never  favor  the 
home  team. 

But  it  was  not  so  with  the  ancient  Greeks. 
They  were  not  familiar  with  conditions  outside 
their  country,  and  they  looked  at  events 
through  a  telescope.  A  thousand  Greeks 
never  overcame  less  than  ten  thousand  Per- 
sians. Their  mountains  always  reached  up 
into  the  skies.  The  gods  used  to  send  to 
Athens  for  their  favorite  brand  of  honey  from 
which  they  brewed  nectar.  The  Spartans 
never  refused  to  fight  and  the  Athenians  never 
were  equalled  in  oratory.  Their  statesmen 
were  animated  by  the  highest  motives,  even 
when  they  grafted  on  every  contract  they  let. 
The  Kephisos,  the  beautiful  stream  which  was 
the  river  of  ancient  Athens  and  is  described 
by  the  poets  as  a  torrent,  is  no  bigger  than 
Cow  creek,  and  at  this  time  of  year  has  no 
water  at  all.  In  fact,  from  all  the  evidence 
now  in  sight,  the  writers  who  described  the 


168  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Greece  of  2,000  years  ago  were  either  Inter- 
ested in  real  estate  and  trying  to  dispose  of 
suburban  additions,  or  they  never  let  the  facts 
interfere  with  the  interest  and  beauty  of  their 
stories.  Those  people  who  come  to  Greece  ex- 
pecting to  find  conditions  now  prevailing  as 
reported  by  Homer,  Thucydides  and  Plato 
will  be  disappointed.  The  gods  no  longer  take 
part  in  human  affairs,  citizenship  in  Athens  is 
not  now  an  evidence  of  superiority,  the  honey 
of  Hymettos  is  coarse,  the  fertile  plains  of 
Attica  are  rocky  and  sterile,  and  instead  of 
gathering  around  the  scholars  and  debating 
questions  of  philosophy  the  Greeks  swarm  in 
the  cafes  and  talk  about  their  neighbors. 

There  is  no  object  in  a  visit  to  Sparta,  for 
that  home  of  heroes  vanished  centuries  ago 
and  a  new  village  occupies  the  old  site.  The 
pass  of  Thermopylse  has  been  changed  by  the 
action  of  nature.  The  inscription  still  says 
that  "here  four  thousand  Peloponnesians 
fought  against  more  than  three  millions,"  but 
military  authorities  now  question  both  the 
figures  given  and  the  location.  I  am  getting 
so  accustomed  to  the  "doubts"  which  modern 
science  raises  in  regard  to  the  treasured  facts 


TnE  OLD   GREEKS  AND   THE   NEW         109 

of  ancient  history  that  I  am  almost  tempted 
to  disbeHeve  the  story  of  our  own  George 
Washington  and  the  famous  cherry  tree. 

The  Greeks  had  the  advantage  over  the 
Persians  and  other  enemies.  They  did  their 
own  reporting. 

But  the  work  the  old  Greeks  did  in  marble 
cannot  be  denied.  It  is  in  every  European 
museum  and  copies  of  it  are  on  every  what- 
not in  the  world. 

About  fifteen  miles  from  Athens  is  a  moun- 
tain of  marble,  Mount  Pentelikon.  It  is  the 
best  and  most  enduring  building  material,  and 
is  just  as  good  in  decorations  and  statues. 
With  these  marble  quarries  so  easy  of  access 
and  with  slave  labor,  the  Athenians  built  their 
great  structures  and  even  paved  some  of  their 
streets.  A  railroad  now  transports  the  big 
blocks  and  slabs,  but  in  those  days  they  had 
to  be  slid  down  hill  and  then  hauled  by  hand 
and  by  ox-power  to  the  city  they  were  to  orna- 
ment. When  Pericles  could  put  100,000  slaves 
on  the  job  of  quarrying  and  transporting  mar- 
ble from  this  mountain,  the  greatness  of  the 
task  disappears,  though  not  the  importance 


170  THE  NEAR  EAST 

and  magnificence  of  the  work.  There  is  where 
the  Greeks  stood  preeminent  among  the  peo- 
ples of  the  B.  C.  times.  They  had  the  brains 
to  conceive  these  works,  the  abihty  to  carry 
them  out,  and  the  good  fortune  of  telhng  their 
own  story  to  those  who  came  after  them. 

On  another  point  Greece  was  more  nearly 
up  to  present  standards  than  other  folks  of 
ancient  history.  Nearly  every  town  in  Greece 
with  a  little  country  around  it  was  an  inde- 
pendent state,  and  the  people  took  part  in 
their  own  government.  Sometimes  there  would 
be  a  tyrant  who  would  usurp  power  for  a  few 
years,  but  he  usually  lost  his  head,  figura- 
tively and  literally.  The  smallness  of  the 
state  enabled  the  people  to  come  together  to 
choose  their  officials  and  to  make  laws,  hence 
the  Greek  government  was  naturally  a  democ- 
racy. Participation  in  government  was  re- 
stricted to  citizens,  usually  to  a  wealthier 
class,  and  of  course  there  were  always  some 
common  folks  and  slaves  who  had  no  rights  at 
all.  There  w^ould  be  a  good  deal  of  complaint 
of  a  democracy  nowadays  fashioned  on  the 
Greek  model.     But  it  was  the  real  self -gov- 


THE  OLD   GREEKS  AND   THE  NEW         171 

eminent  by  the  people,  while  the  Persians,  the 
Hebrews,  the  Babylonians  and  the  balance  of 
"the  powers"  of  those  times,  were  governed 
by  kings  or  priests  or  despots  of  some  descrip- 
tion. 

Why  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  Greece  not 
a  democracy,  or  a  republic  today?  The  real 
answer  is,  that  when  the  Greeks  made  their 
war  for  independence  nearly  a  hundred  years 
ago,  they  tried  to  do  so  as  a  Greek  republic. 
They  did  not  win  the  fight,  but  were  actually 
liberated  by  the  pressure  on  the  Turks  by  the 
nations  of  Europe,  then  in  a  reaction  against 
popular  institutions.  The  French  Bourbons 
and  the  Russian  czars  were  not  in  favor  of  re- 
publics ;  so,  in  order  to  keep  independence, 
the  Greeks  had  to  follow  the  advice  of  the 
diplomats,  who  told  them  they  must  select  a 
king.  They  chose  a  young  Bavarian  prince 
named  Otho,  nineteen  years  old.  Probably 
they  thought  they  would  manage  the  boy,  but 
a  Bavarian  could  not  learn  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, to  say  nothing  of  the  Greek  tempera- 
ment. He  started  in  to  run  the  country  on 
despotic  lines,  and  soon  had  an  insurrection 


172  THE  NEAR  EAST 

on  his  hands.  He  was  forced  to  grant  a  con- 
stitution, but  that  did  not  help  much.  The 
Greeks  love  politics,  and  at  that  time  consid- 
ered brigandage  a  legitimate  occupation  and 
revolution  a  recognized  sport.  Otho  stuck  it 
out  for  thirty  years,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Powers  of  Europe,  who  would  put  his  crown 
on  straight  every  time  the  Greeks  tipped  it 
over  or  knocked  it  off.  In  1862  Otho  gave  up 
the  job  and  went  to  live  with  his  folks.  The 
Greeks  had  to  choose  a  new  king,  and  they 
elected  a  Dane,  a  brother  of  Queen  Alexandria 
of  England  and  related  to  most  of  the  reigning 
families  of  Europe.  He  took  the  name  of 
George  the  First,  and,  being  a  Dane,  refused 
to  leave  the  country  no  matter  how  the  Greeks 
behaved.  He  was  ijot  popular,  but  he  gradu- 
ally conceded  rights  to  parliament  and  the 
people.  Whenever  they  were  about  to  make 
it  too  hot  he  would  give  another  concession  to 
the  Greek  spirit  of  liberty.  Last  year  he  was 
assassinated.  His  son,  Constantine,  is  much 
better  liked  because  he  fought  well  in  the  re- 
cent war,  and  also  because  he  has  a  good  press 
agent. 

The  Greeks  now  have  about  as  much  polit- 


THE  OLD   GREEKS  AND   THE  NEW         173 

ical  freedom  as  the  English,  and  perhaps  more 
than  the  people  of  New  York.  The  real  boss 
of  Greece  is  the  prime  minister,  who  repre- 
sents the  dominant  party,  and  who  six  years 
ago  was  a  country  lawyer  in  the  island  of 
Crete.  Greece  is  now  governed  by  a  repre- 
sentative parliament  elected  by  the  people,  the 
executive  power  being  the  ministry  selected 
from  the  party  which  wins  the  congressional 
elections.  The  king  is  something  more  than 
a  figurehead,  and  in  response  to  the  desire  to 
keep  in  style  Greece  will  doubtless  retain  a 
monarch  and  pay  the  cost.  There  are  no 
nobles  or  jukes,  and  there  are  no  titles  in 
Greece  except  those  which  they  bestow  upon 
each  other  in  their  fierce  political  scraps. 

The  Greeks  are  naturally  just  now  very 
chesty  over  the  result  of  the  wars  with  Turkey 
and  then  Bulgaria.  This  is  the  first  time  the 
Greeks  have  really  licked  anyone  since  the 
time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  By  the  recent 
treaty  Greece  gets  a  lot  of  valuable  territory 
whose  people  are  mostly  Greeks  and  therefore 
can  be  assimilated,  and  practically  all  the 
islands  in  the  ^Egean  Sea  she  did  not  already 
hold.     Those  Greek  section  hands  whom  we 


174  THE  NEAR  EAST 

have  seen  working  on  American  railroads  and 
have  not  really  appreciated,  proved  to  be  good 
soldiers,  and  the  campaign  was  well  managed 
from  start  to  finish.  This  will  give  the  Greeks 
confidence  in  themselves  and  the  respect  of 
their  neighbors.  If  their  statesmen  can  keep 
the  country  out  of  the  Balkan  quarrels  and 
devote  themselves  to  raising  the  intellectual 
standard,  there  will  be  a  future  to  Greece 
which  would  make  old  Socrates  sit  up  and 
take  notice  if  he  could  return.  The  worst 
feature  of  the  Greeks  of  today  corresponds  to 
the  weakness  of  two  thousand  years  ago  :  ev- 
ery Greek  wants  to  be  a  soloist. 

Athens  had  the  most  remarkable  jury  sys- 
tem of  which  I  have  heard.  Every  year  the 
government  drew  the  names  of  five  thousand 
citizens  to  act  as  jurors.  They  were  divided 
into  juries  of  five  hundred  each,  and  were  paid 
for  their  services  whether  on  duty  or  not.  If 
you  had  a  case  to  be  tried  you  had  to  take 
your  chance  with  a  jury  of  five  hundred  of 
your  fellow-citizens.  If  they  did  not  like 
you  very  well  it  was  good-by  for  you,  unless 
your  lawyer  had  good  lungs  and  talked  them 


THE  OLD    GREEKS  AXD   THE  NEW         175 

over.  Such  a  jury  found  Socrates  guilty  of 
impiety,  about  corresponding  to  our  "conduct 
unbecoming  a  gentleman."  When  Socrates 
was  asked  what  punishment  he  deserved,  he 
told  the  jury  that  he  thought  he  should  be 
pensioned  by  the  state.  This  made  the  jury 
sore,  and  ttey  socked  it  to  Socrates  with  the 
death  penalty.  According  to  some  authori- 
ties this  is  the  origin  of  the  motto,  "soc 
et  tuum." 

This  jury  system  made  five  thousand  easy 
government  jobs,  with  nothing  to  do  but  sit 
on  a  bench  and  listen  to  the  lawj^ers,  not  to 
the  evidence.  Pericles  was  the  only  Athenian 
statesman  I  can  find  who  was  able  to  hold  his 
place,  and  under  his  administration  at  Athens 
practically  every  citizen  was  an  office-holder. 
When  an  insurgent  politician  tried  to  start 
something  Pericles  would  make  him  foreman 
of  the  jury  or  custodian  of  the  Erectheum,  or 
assistant  superintendent  of  ventilation  for  the 
Areopagus.  You  can't  beat  a  man  like  that 
— or  you  can't  in  Athens  or  New  York  City. 


The  Eastern  Balkans 


No  Man's  Land — Albania 

VoLONA,  Albania,  Sept.  10. 

I  doubt  if  many  people  who  read  this  letter 
will  know  where  Albania  is,  or  whether  it  is 
a  country  or  a  breakfast  food.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  the  newest  state  of  Europe,  al- 
though its  name  has  been  on  the  map  for  cen- 
turies. 

Along  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic  Sea  for 
about  a  hundred  miles  between  Greece  and 
Montenegro,  and  extending  back  from  the 
coast  about  a  hundred  miles,  is  what  might 
be  called  the  No  Man's  Land  of  Europe.  It  is 
all  mountain  land  and  a  very  rough  and  un- 
prepossessing kind  of  that.  Its  soil  is  not 
fertile  except  in  spots,  and  most  of  it  will  never 
be  good  for  anything  but  to  be  a  cause  for 
war  in  Europe.  It  is  inhabited  by  about  200 
different  tribes,  each  of  which  has  its  chief, 
and  these  tribes  differ  in  race  and  religion. 
They  are  Serbs,  Turks,  Greeks,  and  descend- 
ants of  the  original  folks  in  the  Balkans  who 

(179) 


180  THE  NEAR  EAST 

escaped  and  took  to  the  hills  when  their  kins- 
men were  killed  or  enslaved.  They  are  Ro- 
man Catholics,  Greek  Catholics,  and  Moslems. 
For  centuries  they  have  been  Turkish  subjects, 
but  the  sultan  was  never  able  to  manage  them. 
When  he  went  to  war  they  furnished  an  ir- 
regular force  of  Bashi-Bazouks,  who  fought 
fiercely  and  viciously.  They  were  about  the 
best  of  the  Turkish  army  when  it  came  to  the 
kind  of  fighting  which  means  death  and  de- 
struction to  the  enemy,  and  which  has  no 
knowledge  of  what  are  called  the  rules  of  civil- 
ized warfare.  They  were  dreaded  more  than 
the  Turk,  and  they  rejoiced  in  their  reputa- 
tion. When  not  engaged  in  war  against  an 
outside  enemy  they  are  at  enmity  with  one 
another,  and  their  tribal  feuds  and  individual 
vendettas  are  their  national  pastime 

When  the  Balkan  states  defeated  the  Turks 
last  spring  the  Servians,  Montenegrins  and 
Greeks  expected  to  divide  Albania.  The  Pow- 
ers of  Europe  stepped  in  at  the  desire  of  Aus- 
tria and  Italy,  which  want  Albania  themselves, 
and  announced  that  Albania  must  be  organ- 
ized as  an  independent  state.  The  Monte- 
negrins were  compelled  to  evacuate  Scutari, 


NO  man's  land ALBANIA  181 

which  they  had  won  by  bloody  fighting,  be- 
cause Scutari  is  in  the  north  of  Albania  and 
necessary  for  the  new  state.  The  Powers  then 
appointed  a  committee  on  permanent  organi- 
zation, which  will  try  to  form  a  government 
and  will  provide  for  the  selection  of  a  king  of 
the  new  country.  This  committee  is  now  in 
session  at  Volona,  with  Austrian  and  Italian 
warships  in  the  harbor  to  see  that  the  report 
of  the  committee  is  adopted.  Thus  far  no 
European  prince  has  been  found  with  nerve 
enough  to  tackle  the  job  of  being  king  of  the 
Albanians.  It  is  not  an  inviting  situation  for 
anyone  who  values  his  personal  safety.  There 
is  an  Albanian  chief,  Effend  Pasha,  who  ought 
to  be  the  king  or  boss,  but  it  is  feared  he  could 
not  hold  the  Albanians  together  as  well  as  a 
foreigner.  He  was  in  command  of  the  Turk- 
ish forces  at  Scutari,  and  had  the  sense  to 
surrender  the  town  after  holding  it  as  long  as 
possible.  Thus  he  saved  the  soldiers  from  the 
punishment  they  would  have  gotten  from  the 
Montenegrins,  who  hate  Turks  and  Albanians 
with  a  fanaticism  only  equalled  by  that  the 
devil  is  supposed  to  have  for  holy  water. 


182  THE  NEAR  EAST 

The  Albanian  men-folks  remind  me  much 
of  the  old  cowboys  of  the  West.  They  wear 
gay  costumes  and  carry  in  their  belts  big  re- 
volvers and  long  ugly  knives.  They  look  as 
if  they  would  kill  you  without  notice,  but  in 
fact,  unless  you  are  an  enemy,  they  seem  to 
be  rather  gentle  and  friendly.  There  used  to 
be  a  saying  in  the  cattle-trade  days  of  western 
Kansas  :  "West  of  Newton,  no  Sunday ;  west 
of  Dodge,  no  God."  In  Volona  today  I  kept 
thinking  of  this  phrase  and  imagining  it  was 
the  good  old  time  and  I  was  out  about  Cim- 
arron. 

The  Albanian  costumes  are  something  worth 
the  price  of  admission.  An  Albanian  gent 
from  the  south  will  wear  white  skirts  to  his 
knees.  Here  in  Volona  the  skirt  has  disap- 
peared and  the  Albanian  w^ears  blue  or  white 
bloomer  trousers  to  the  knees,  with  white 
leggings  and  pointed  red  shoes  with  tassels. 
His  vest  is  blue  or  red  and  embroidered  most 
gorgeously,  while  an  embroidered  or  furry  coat 
falls  back  over  his  shoulders.  On  his  head  is 
a  white  fez.  Around  his  waist  is  a  broad  sash 
belt,  usually  of  many  colors,  and  out  of  that 
belt   stick   long   revolvers    and   knives    with 


NO  man's  TAND — ALBANIA  183 

jeweled  handles  and  inlaid  work  that  would  be 
worth  a  lot  in  any  antique  shop  in  New  York. 
A  massive  and  ornate  watch-chain  goes  with 
the  rest.  He  is  tall  and  handsome,  and  real- 
izes himself  that  he  is  a  vision  of  loveliness 
as  he  poses  in  the  cafe  or  as  he  rides  his  horse 
out  of  town  at  the  cowboy  gallop.  He  wull 
not  work  unless  forced  to  do  so  by  stern  neces- 
sity, and  then  in  a  mild  manner  indicating 
that  it  is  a  novel  experience  which  he  heartily 
disapproves.  When  he  turns  his  hand  to  or- 
namentation and  skilled  handiwork  he  is  ar- 
tistic, with  the  love  of  color  of  the  oriental, 
and  with  the  same  patience  and  perseverance 
that  characterize  the  people  of  the  great  East. 

The  lady  Albanian  dresses  more  quietly,  as 
befits  her  sex.  She  may  have  an  embroidered 
jacket  and  a  pleated  skirt.  Her  ankles  are 
shown  higher  than  they  are  with  us.  But  as 
she  has  to  do  most  of  the  hanl  work  while  her 
hero  husband  hunts  the  enemy  or  talks  about 
the  war,  her  costume  is  careless  and  not  near 
so  attractive  or  fetching  as  that  of  her  man. 

But  women  occupy  a  high  place  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  men.  An  Albanian  puts  the  women 
of  his  family  on  a  pedestal,  and  while  he  ex- 


184  THE  NEAR  EAST 

pects  them  to  work  he  will  defend  them  from 
any  insult  or  attack.  He  also  respects  the 
women  of  other  folks  unless  he  is  at  war  with 
them.  I  was  told  that  an  Albanian  woman 
would  not  dare  flirt,  for  if  she  did  and  were 
caught,  her  husband  would  exercise  his  right 
to  kill  the  flirter  and  the  flirtee.  I  do  not 
know  if  this  is  true  or  not,  for  I  feared  it  might 
be,  and  my  observations  of  the  female  Al- 
banian were  made  from  the  rear.  When  she 
turned  around  I  looked  the  other  way.  In 
this  foolish  country,  where  men  wear  skirts 
and  there  is  only  one  mail  a  week,  it  is  wise 
to  take  no  chances.  And  then  I  did  not  want 
to  see  any  Albanian  lady  killed  on  my  account. 

Around  this  town  of  Volona  Mrs.  Morgan 
and  I  have  wandered  today,  meeting  no  one 
who  could  speak  our  language.  By  the  use 
of  signs  and  money  we  had  a  good  time,  se- 
cured something  to  eat,  beat  down  the  price 
quoted  on  Albanian  clothing,  and  returned  to 
the  ship  in  time  for  supper.  The  town  is 
curious  with  its  narrow  dusty  streets,  its  low 
white  houses,  its  uniquely  dressed  people,  and 
its  odd  little  shops.     The  sights  and  scenes 


'Wheti  she  turned  around,  I  looked  the  other  tray.     I  did  not 
want  to  see  any  Albanian  lady  hilled  on  my  account." 


NO   man's  land ALBANIA  185 

of  a  city  where  sewers  are  unknown  and  would 
be  regarded  as  superfluous,  where  there  is  no 
street-cleaning  department,  and  apparently  no 
city  ordinances  or  trash  cans,  are  not  peculiar 
to  Albanians,  but  they  are  very  noticeable. 
And  yet  the  people  seemed  happy,  satisfied 
and  cheerful.  I  wonder  if  the  approaching 
invasion  of  civilization,  with  its  clean-up  days 
and  its  forcing  everybody  to  do  what  he  does 
not  want  to  do,  will  not  be  a  net  disadvantage 
to  the  Albanian  ? 

There  is  something  to  the  Albanian.  Give 
him  a  chance  and  he  generally  makes  good. 
Many  of  the  best  generals  and  statesmen  of 
Turkey  have  been  Albanians.  Sultan  Abdul- 
Hamid  would  have  no  guard  but  Albanians, 
for  he  knew  thej'^  would  rather  fight  than  sell 
out  to  his  enemies.  They  have  no  schools, 
no  roads,  no  improvements.  Under  Turkish 
rule  they  had  no  government.  It  will  take 
time  for  a  people  like  this  to  get  their  feet  on 
the  civilized  earth  and  learn  to  pay  taxes  and 
submit  to  laws.  The  Albanian  in  appearance, 
dress,  habitation  and  customs  is  much  like  the 
old  Highland  Scot,  who  turned  out  to  be  the 


186  THE  NEAR  EAST 

smartest  man  in  the  world  after  he  was  caught 
and  tamed. 

An  enthusiastic  Albanian,  whom  I  recently 
met,  said : 

"  Give  the  Albanians  ten  years  for  education 
and  they  will  be  the  best  folks  in  the  Balkans." 

Five  hundred  years  ago  their  forefathers 
went  to  these  mountains  to  escape  from  the 
enemy.  Since  that  time  the  Albanians  have 
had  no  opportunity  to  do  more  than  live  and 
fight.  But  they  have  a  character  which  will 
develop  rapidly  now  that  they  are  going  to 
get  their  chance  at  last. 

Of  course  the  Powers  of  Europe  were  hypo- 
critical when  they  formed  this  new  nation. 
What  they  want  is  as  many  little  countries  as 
possible  so  they  can  utilize  the  jealousies  and 
feuds  to  eventually  attach  them  to  the  old 
countries. 

Albania  has  several  fair  seaports  and  is 
therefore  valuable.  I  hope  the  Albania  lead- 
ers will  be  able  to  hitch  their  200  tribes  to- 
gether so  well  that  the  Powers  will  find  this 
another  Montenegro  which  cannot  be  con- 
quered.    There  are  now  seven  sovereign  na- 


NO  man's  land ALBANIA  187 

tions  in  the  Balkan  peninsula,  whieli  a  few 
years  ago  was  called  Turkey  in  Europe  :  Rou- 
mania,  Bulgaria,  Servia,  Montenegro,  Greece, 
Albania,  and  Turkey.  Seven  nations  in  a 
space  about  the  size  of  Kansas  and  Colorado, 
seven  armies  to  maintain,  seven  kings  with 
courts,  seven  governments  to  support,  and 
seven  sovereignties  to  quarrel  with  one  an- 
other. 

We  are  cruising  along  the  coast  of  Albania 
in  a  ship  that  stops  several  hours  at  every 
chance.  There  is  no  way  to  go  into  the  in- 
terior except  on  horseback.  The  shore  is 
mountainous  and  a  "sirocco"  is  blowing  on 
the  sea.  A  "sirocco"  is  what  we  would  call 
in  Kansas  a  hot  wind  from  the  south,  which 
makes  everybody  peevish,  and  the  water  fussy. 
Sirocco  sounds  much  better  than  hot  wind. 
In  Kansas  we  should  cover  up  disagreeable 
features  with  pretentious  names  as  they  do 
in  the  Orient.  Anybody  would  rather  have 
a  "sirocco"  than  a  "hoi  wind." 

My  Albanian  acquaintance  has  been  repre- 
senting the  Associated  Press  in  this  section, 


188  THE  NEAR  EAST 

and  is  as  bright  and  educated  a  man  as  one 
finds  anywhere.  He  has  put  aside  the  em- 
broidered vest  and  the  big  revolver.  He  is 
one  of  the  new  crowd  that  will  try  to  make 
Albania  catch  up  with  the  procession  that 
has  been  going  by  her  for  500  years.  He  is 
full  of  hope  and  confidence,  but  admits  there 
is  a  hard  job  ahead.  Probably  he  is  right, 
and  in  a  few  years  the  Albanians  will  be  peace- 
ful, law-abiding  citizens,  and  wear  the  same 
kind  of  clothes  that  we  do,  but  when  that 
happens  Albania  will  not  be  interesting  or 
picturesque. 


i 


The  Mitey  Montenegro 

Cettinje,  Montenegro,  Sept.  14. 
This  is  the  smallest  real  nation  in  the  world. 
It  is  no  toy  or  dependent  principality,  but  for 
five  hundred  years  has  maintained  an  inde- 
pendent existence,  the  only  one  of  the  Balkan 
states  which  the  Turks  did  not  subdue.  It 
is  about  2,000  square  miles  in  area,  very  little 
larger  than  Reno  county,  Kansas,  and  all  of 
its  land,  except  a  small  outlet  to  the  sea,  is 
rough,  rocky  mountain.  This  road  to  the  sea 
is  only  a  recent  acquisition.  During  its  cen- 
turies of  warfare  against  the  Turks  Monte- 
negro was  the  baddest  kind  of  "bad  lands," 
steep  mountain-sides,  deep  gorges,  with  only 
an  occasional  spot  that  could  be  cultivated ; 
a  territory  which  presented  no  attraction  ex- 
cept its  insolent  independence,  which  the 
Turks  were  constantly  trying  to  overthrow. 
Twice  the  Turkish  armies  penetrated  to  tHe 
little  capital  and  destroyed  the  monastery 
which  was  its  only  large  building.     But  the 

(189) 


190  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Montenegrins  had  retired  into  the  mountain- 
tops,  and  as  soon  as  the  army  had  left  an  or- 
dinary garrison  they  came  back,  the  old  mon- 
astery walls  were  decorated  with  the  heads  of 
the  Turks,  and  the  church  rebuilt  at  once. 

In  the  14th  century,  when  the  Moslems  de- 
feated the  Serbs  in  the  battle  of  Kossovo,  and 
subjugated  the  Balkan  peninsula,  a  number 
of  the  Serb  leaders  and  soldiers  took  to 
these  mountains  and  refused  to  surrender. 
They  preferred  to  abandon  old  homes  and 
fertile  valleys  and  live  in  the  rocks,  to  bowing 
under  the  Turkish  yoke.  They  and  their 
descendants  have  hved  since  then  with  but 
one  object — to  kill  all  the  Turks  possible  and 
to  drive  the  rest  out  of  the  neighborhood. 
Whenever  any  country  had  a  war  against 
the  Sultan  it  could  count  on  the  Montene- 
grin support.  Last  year  when  the  campaign 
of  the  Balkan  allies  began,  10,000  Montene- 
grins returned  from  America  to  have  a  hand 
in  the  glorious  fight.  When  the  call  went 
out  for  troops  the  king  of  Montenegro  did 
not  ask  for  volunteers,  but  called  for  every 
man  between  the  ages  of  16  and  65,  and  they 


THE  MITEY  MONTENEGRO  191 

all  responded.  Many  women  went  with  the 
army,  and  when  Turkish  prisoners  were  cap- 
tured they  were  often  turned  over  to  women 
guards,  thus  permitting  the  men  to  march 
ahead.  In  fact,  the  whole  Montenegrin  na- 
tion went  to  war  last  year,  just  as  it  had  been 
doing  at  every  opportunity  for  five  centuries. 

A  people  raised  mid  such  surroundings  for 
so  many  generations  is  bound  to  be  peculiar. 
Their  reputation  in  the  countries  round  about 
is  that  they  are  honest,  courteous,  reliable,  and 
ready  to  fight.  In  Constantinople  they  are 
employed  as  guards  for  the  banks  and  as  pri- 
vate watchmen,  and  are  considered  better 
protection  than  the  law.  They  will  not  work, 
or  at  least  not  much.  They  go  heavily  armed, 
with  gun,  pistols  and  knife.  Look  at  their  belts 
and  you  think  they  are  highwaymen.  Look 
at  their  faces  and  you  know  they  are  friends. 
They  are  tall,  stalwart  and  fine-looking,  the 
most  courteous  people  I  ever  met.  They  have 
little  education  as  yet,  no  opportunities,  but 
these  mountains  have  taken  the  gallant  Serbs 
who  would  not  surrender  and  made  them  into 
the  fiercest  and  kindliest  gentlemen  in  Europe. 


192  THE  NEAR  EAST 

The  same  story  is  told  on  the  Montenegrins 
as  on  the  Irish.  When  one  of  them  reached  a 
foreign  land  he  inquired  for  a  job. 

"What  can  you  do.?"  he  was  asked. 

"I  can  superintend." 

Put  a  Montenegrin  into  polite  society  any- 
where and  he  would  be  perfectly  at  home. 
Put  him  on  a  rich  farm  and  give  him  imple- 
ments and  seed,  and  he  would  nearly  starve. 
He  is  not  lazy.  He  simply  cannot  get  the  idea 
of  work.  For  centuries  he  has  been  born  and 
raised  on  the  theory  that  he  was  a  fighting 
man,  and  all  his  talents  have  been  converted 
into  that  one. 

The  Montenegro  woman  does  some  work. 
It  has  been  her  part  to  raise  the  children  and 
the  little  crop,  look  after  the  goat  and  the  pig, 
and  then  do  a  share  in  the  war.  If  necessary 
she  took  a  gun  and  went  to  shooting,  and  if 
necessary  her  men-folks  aided  her  in  the  farm 
work.  Each  went  out  of  his  or  her  "sphere" 
for  the  common  welfare,  but  only  on  extra- 
ordinary occasions.  The  women  show  the  in- 
fluence of  labor  and  look  worn  and  tired,  while 
their  husbands  have  the  serene  and  peaceful 
countenances  of  those  who  suffer  no  anxiety 


THE  MITEY  MONTENEGRO  193 

except  to  keep  their  weapons  clean  and  their 
word  good. 

The  king  of  Montenegro  is  Nicholas,  called 
always  by  his  people  "Nick."  He  is  now  old 
and  patriarchal,  but  he  has  been  a  good  ruler. 

It  is  his  custom  to  sit  under  a  tree  in  the 
back  yard,  hear  any  complaints,  and  advise 
the  people  what  is  going  on.  He  has  written 
several  plays  and  he  loves  to  make  speeches. 
In  the  United  States  he  would  undoubtedly 
be  a  feature  on  every  chautauqua  platform, 
but  in  Montenegro  he  gets  nothing  for  his 
talk  but  his  regular  salary.  He  is  a  careful, 
thrifty  monarch,  and  manages  pubhc  affairs 
wisely.  One  of  his  daughters  is  queen  of  Italy, 
two  more  are  married  to  Russian  grand  dukes. 
His  eldest  son,  Danilo  (the  same  as  our  Dan), 
is  popular  as  a  good  citizen  and  fighter. 

Until  about  fifty  years  ago  the  kingship  was 
hereditary  from  uncle  to  nephew.  The  king 
was  by  law  the  bishop  and  one  of  the  "black 
clergy"  of  the  Greek  Catholic  Church,  who 
cannot  marry.  Therefore  the  king  would 
have  no  children  and  the  job  would  go  to  his 
nephew.     This   continued   about   200   years. 


194  THE  NEAR  EAST 

and  then  Danilo,  uncle  of  the  present  king, 
fell  in  love  with  a  beautiful  girl  and  repealed 
the  law.  At  that  time  there  was  no  parlia- 
ment or  congress,  and  Danilo  was  the  whole 
thing  in  government.  Danilo  married  the 
girl  and  gave  up  the  bishop  business  to  another 
fellow.  They  had  no  children,  so  the  crown 
again  went  to  the  nephew,  Nicholas,  who  has 
a  herd,  and  will  be  succeeded  by  his  son, 
young  Dan. 

For  500  years  every  Montenegrin,  man  and 
woman,  has  worn  the  same  kind  of  a  round 
red  cap  with  a  black  border.  The  black  is  to 
remind  them  of  the  disaster  to  their  old  Ser- 
vian country  and  that  they  must  have  revenge 
on  the  Turks.  They  go  in  for  gay  clothes. 
The  man  wears  blue  loose  baggy  trousers 
which  gather  around  the  knees,  white  heavy 
stockings,  and  low  sandal  shoes.  His  waist- 
coat is  blue  or  red,  and  embroidered  as  much 
as  he  can  pay  for  or  his  wife  can  do.  His 
top-coat  is  white  or  blue.  His  belt  is  a  bril- 
liant sash  with  revolver  and  knife  in  the  front. 
This  combination  of  red,  white  and  blue,  with 
the   arsenal   between,    is   very   effective.     It 


\ii/^:^^^ 


'If  KiiKj  Xirliolo.t,  of  Montcuc(]rn,  ircre  an  American,  he  iconld 
be  a  feature  on  every  CliaittaiKiiui  jildtform." 


THE  MITEY  MONTENEGRO  195 

does  look  a  good  deal  like  musical  comedy,  but 
it  is  no  joke. 

The  woman  wears  the  same  cap,  sometimes 
with  streamers.  She  has  an  embroidered 
blouse  and  bright  -  colored  short  full  skirt 
which  discloses  the  ankles  and  quite  a  little 
more.  Sometimes  she  has  sandals  on  her  feet, 
but  around  home  or  at  work  she  prefers  to  go 
barefooted.  The  costume  has  much  possibil- 
ity, and  as  worn  by  the  richer  folks  is  strik- 
ing,— but  there  are  very  few  rich  people  in 
Montenegro.  The  habit  of  carrying  heavy 
loads  on  her  back  makes  her  figure  less  at- 
tractive than  that  of  the  man,  w^ho  walks  very 
straight,  very  gracefully,  and  not  very  rapidly 
unless  he  is  chasing  a  Turk  or  being  chased 
by  one. 

There  are  250,000  people  living  in  this 
mountain  land,  which  raises  onlj^  a  few  vege- 
tables, some  tobacco,  a  little  corn,  a  few  sheep 
and  goats.  It  is  a  struggle  to  get  a  living  and 
the  food  is  not  very  rich.  Thousands  of 
Montenegrins  have  to  leave  home  to  find  em- 
ployment, but  they  will  return  when  King 
Nick  blows  the  horn. 


196  THE  NEAR  EAST 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  only  industry  at 
Cettinje  is  a  cartridge  factory. 

The  Montenegrins  want  a  Httle  slice  of  fer- 
tile land  on  the  south,  including  the  city  of 
Scutari,  and  in  the  recent  war  they  won  it 
from  the  Turks,  only  to  be  told  they  must  give 
it  up  to  the  new  state,  Albania. 

Montenegro  is  closely  allied  to  Servia  and 
to  Russia,  by  race  and  by  religion.  For  over 
a  hundred  years  the  Russian  government  has 
given  Montenegro  a  regular  annual  subsidy, 
in  return  for  which  the  Montenegrins  agreed 
to  make  things  interesting  for  the  Turks. 
They  have  certainly  kept  their  part  of  the 
contract.  But  now  that  the  Turks  have  been 
shoved  nearly  to  the  jumping-off  place  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  original  mission  of  the 
Montenegrin  nation  is  accomplished.  It  will 
have  to  change  its  objective  point.  King 
Nicholas  is  leading  the  way,  and  there  are 
several  schools,  including  one  for  girls,  the  lat- 
ter being  established  by  the  Empress  of  Rus- 
sia. Of  course  when  the  Montenegrins  get  an 
education  they  will  be  dissatisfied  and  un- 
happy. The  men  will  have  to  quit  carrying 
guns  and  the  women  will  be  wanting  to  quit 


THE  MITEY  MONTENEGRO  197 

the  heavy  work  and  stand  up  straight.  The 
new  troubles  of  Montenegro  will  soon  begin. 
The  little  state  which  stood  as  the  rock  against 
which  Moslem  hosts  broke  themselves,  will 
now  have  to  construct  itself  along  modern 
lines.  It  is  almost  a  pity  that  this  should  be 
so,  but  it  is  inevitable. 

The  Montenegrin  today  does  not  know  what 
has  happened  or  that  he  has  fought  himself 
to  victory  and  out  of  a  job.  He  must  look 
for  some  other  occupation  and  amusement  be- 
sides hating  the  Turks  and  preparing  for  the 
next  campaign.  I  walked  down  the  streets  of 
Cettinje  and  wondered  what  would  be  the  real 
future  of  this  remarkable  folk  who  are  living 
in  the  several  centuries  ago.  The  telegraph 
has  come  over  the  mountain.  Up  to  a  few 
years  ago  the  news  was  repeated  by  criers  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  If  a 
battle  was  won,  or  if  the  king  had  the  rheuma- 
tism, the  fact  w^as  proclaimed  publicly,  and 
then  reported  by  strong -lunged  criers  from 
one  mountain  to  the  next.  Now  there  is  a 
newspaper  in  Cettinje  and  a  moving-picture 
show.     When  the  present  King  Nicholas  in 


198  THE  NEAR  EAST 

1878  defeated  the  Turks  at  Nikshitch  he  sat 
down  on  the  battlefield  and  wrote  a  poem  tell- 
ing all  about  it.  He  sent  this  to  the  queen, 
who  read  it  aloud  to  the  people  from  the  front 
porch  of  the  royal  residence  at  Cettinje.  The 
society  news  and  the  war  news  are  all  mixed 
together. 

It  is  said  that  King  Nick  knows  all  his  sub- 
jects by  their  first  names.  But  I  imagine  he 
gets  the  reputation  by  calling  everybody  either 
Nick  or  Dan,  and  he  is  almost  sure  to  be  right. 

On  a  little  hill  above  the  town  is  the  monas- 
tery upon  the  walls  of  which  the  Montenegrins 
were  accustomed  to  stick  the  heads  of  Turks 
as  a  sort  of  holiday  decoration.  In  the  old 
monastery  a  printing-press  was  put  up  a  very 
few  years  after  the  invention  of  type.  But 
the  Turks  came  along  and  destroyed  all  of 
the  plant  which  the  Montenegrins  had  not 
melted  into  bullets. 

The  Montenegrin  does  not  have  much  fun. 
There  is  a  small  theatre,  built  by  the  king,  in 
which  the  plays  written  by  Nicholas  are  often 
acted.  Their  subject  is  war  and  patriotism. 
The  men  are  too  dignified  to  dance  and  the 
women  are  too  busy.     The  government  han- 


THE  MITEY  MONTENEGRO  199 


dies  the  tobacco  business  and  the  men  are 
continually  smoking  cigarettes.  The  women 
do  not  smoke  so  much,  probably  because  there 
are  not  enough  cigarettes  to  go  around,  but 
they  have  the  right  to  do  so  and  they  exercise 
it.  The  houses  are  nearly  all  one-story  stone, 
with  red  tiled  or  thatched  roofs,  and  some  of 
them  have  glass  windows.  A  Montenegrin 
nearly  fills  the  door  as  he  stands  in  it,  and  is  a 
wonderful  picture  of  fine  manhood.  The 
Montenegriness,  who  is  milking  the  goat  or 
digging  the  potatoes,  is  not  so  prepossessing, 
but  what  would  the  Montenegrins  have  done 
without  her.^  They  would  probably  have 
starved,  and  they  never  would  have  the  em- 
broidered clothes  and  the  white  stockings  or 
the  tobacco  for  the  cigarettes. 


The  Black  Mountain 

Cettinje,  Sept.  16. 
The  name  Montenegro  means  black  moun- 
tain, literally  "mountain  negro."  It  was 
given  because  the  mountains  were  black, 
which  they  may  have  been,  but  I  doubt  it. 
They  are  a  gray  lot  of  rocks  ich  in  the 
times  before  we  know  about  were  probably 
thrown  into  these  piles  by  some  great  volcano. 
There  is  a  folk-story  that  when  the  world  was 
created  there  was  a  lot  of  rocks  left  over.  The 
angel,  to  whom  they  were  given  to  be  disposed 
of,  dumped  them  all  in  one  place,  Montenegro. 
Up  and  over  these  peaks  of  stone  the  Monte- 
negrins had  always  refused  to  build  any  roads, 
because  they  would  give  an  access  by  which 
the  Turks  or  Albanians  could  enter  the  coun- 
try. A  few  years  ago  King  Nicholas  permitted 
the  Austrian  government  to  build  a  wonderful 
road  up  the  Austrian  part  of  the  mountains 
and  then  on  to  the  top  and  to  Cettinje.  The 
conservatives    looked    upon    this    innovation 

(200) 


THE  BLACK  MOUNTAIN  201 

with  much  alarm,  but  Nicholas  had  his  way. 
On  this  road  we  came  from  Cattaro,  in  Aus- 
trian Dalmatia,  to  Cettinje. 

The  road  begins  at  the  dock  in  the  fine 
natural  harbor  of  Cattaro,  and  goes  on  an 
almost  straight-up  mountain-side  for  3,000 
feet,  making  the  ascent  by  hairpin  curves,  and 
often  one  leg  of  the  hairpin  is  almost  directly 
above  the  other.  The  road  is  built  of  stone, 
with  a  wall  along  the  outer  edge.  As  we  went 
steadily  higher  and  higher,  the  panorama  of 
the  beautiful  bay,  the  foothills  covered  with 
vegetation,  the  sea  beyond  and  the  mountains 
at  either  side,  unrolled  before  us,  inspiring, 
picturesque  and  awesome.  Three  thousand 
feet  above  Cattaro  it  seemed  as  if  one  could 
toss  a  stone  down  into  the  town.  Then  the 
road  turns  into  a  pass,  soon  reaching  the  vil- 
lage of  Njegushi,  then  over  other  mountain 
heights  and  down  the  last  few  miles  a  thou- 
sand feet  into  the  Cettinje  basin.  The  road 
is  regarded  as  the  most  wonderful  piece  of 
road-building  in  the  world,  and  the  view, 
which  is  continuous  for  hours  as  one  goes  up 


202  THE  NEAR  EAST 

or  down  the  mountain,  is  the  finest  I  have 
ever  seen. 

At  Njegushi  is  the  inevitable  custom-house 
which  awaits  the  traveler  as  he  enters  any 
country.  Wearily  we  crawled  from  the  car, 
and  I  submitted  my  passport  to  the  officer  in 
charge.  "Americans  don't  have  to  have  their 
baggage  examined,"  he  said  with  a  grin,  and 
soon  we  were  talking  good  United  States  lan- 
guage to  the  chap,  who  had  spent  several 
years  in  California.  He  had  come  home  to 
fight  the  Turks,  was  taken  sick,  and  put  on 
this  job. 

As  I  have  written,  Cettinje  is  in  a  little 
basin,  or  what  we  would  call  a  hollow,  about 
a  mile  square,  with  a  rim  of  mountain-tops  a 
thousand  feet  high  all  around.  Better  than  a 
wall  and  a  moat  and  a  barb-wire  fence  to  keep 
out  the  intruder  is  this  row  of  mountain  crags 
and  impassable  canyons.  It  has  enabled  a 
few  thousand  Montenegrins  to  hold  their  own 
against  armies  many  times  their  number  made 
up  of  Turks,  as  good  fighting  men  as  there  are 
in  the  world  outside  of  Kansas.     Time  and 


THE  BLACK  MOUNTAIN  203 

again  this  has  happened  in  the  500  years  of 
warfare,  which  now  seems  to  be  ended.  The 
Montenegrins  are  not  regular  soldiers,  but 
natural  fighters,  and  take  advantage  of  every 
help  given  by  nature.  They  have  always  been 
good  marksmen,  and  the  frequent  practice 
they  got  made  it  just  the  same  as  suicide  for 
a  man  with  a  fez  or  an  army  with  a  crescent 
flag  to  try  to  cross  the  mountains. 

Cettinje  is  a  straggling  town  of  five  thou- 
sand people  who  live  in  one-story  stone  houses 
with  red-tiled  roofs  and  bare  stone  floors. 
There  is  but  one  real  street,  and  the  stores  are 
just  what  might  be  expected.  King  Nicholas 
has  a  two-story  house  with  a  front  and  back 
yard ;  and  the  government  building,  in  which 
are  all  the  public  offices  from  secretary  of 
state  to  township  trustee,  is  rather  preten- 
tious. The  Russian,  English  and  Italian  gov- 
ernments have  handsome  residences  for  their 
ambassadors,  to  impress  the  Montenegrins 
with  the  importance  of  those  nations.  The 
United  States  has  no  official  representative  in 
the  country'.  Montenegro  has  no  diplomatic 
service,  or  any  other  service  that  takes  money. 


204  THE  NEAR  EAST 

King  Nicholas  runs  the  government  as  he 
would  his  own  business,  and  he  has  no  funds 
with  which  to  pay  traveling-men. 

In  fact,  the  kingdom  of  Montenegro  is  al- 
ways broke.  The  people  are  too  poor  to  pay 
any  taxes,  so  there  are  none.  The  government 
makes  a  little  money  out  of  postage  stamps 
and  tobacco.  Everybody  smokes  cigarettes, 
and  the  government  has  a  monopoly  on  their 
manufacture.  The  patriotic  Montenegrins 
contribute  in  this  way  to  the  support  of  their 
country.  As  the  women  smoke,  they  are  de- 
nied that  privilege  possessed  by  women  in 
other  lands  of  telling  their  husbands  that  they 
should  economize  by  quitting  the  smoke  habit. 
I  suppose  there  never  is  a  woman  whose  men- 
folks  smoke  who  does  not  consider  it  an  awful 
waste  of  money  and  occasionally  tells  them  so. 

The  government  pay-roll  is  small,  there  is 
no  standing  army,  and  contributions  of  money 
and  guns  have  been  "regularly  and  thank- 
fully" received  from  Russia  and  from  promi- 
nent people  and  interests  who  have  wanted  to 
see  the  Montenegrins  get  along  and  the  Turks 
kept  busy. 


THE  BIuACK  MOUNTAIN  205 

King  Nicholas  is  not  at  home  or  I  would  go 
and  see  him,  which  I  could  do.  He  is  always 
friendly  with  visitors  who  might  have  a  little 
money  to  spend,  and  he  is  willing  to  take 
chances.  I  would  like  to  see  him,  for  I  am 
told  he  is  clean  and  healthy.  All  the  royal 
people  I  have  observed  have  been  disappoint- 
ing. They  are  nearly  always  slobby  and  have 
something  the  matter  with  them,  something 
hereditary  which  makes  them  look  sallow  and 
hopeless.  It  is  quite  a  problem  in  Europe  to 
keep  the  royal  highnesses  out  of  the  idiot 
asylums  and  away  from  the  Paris  cafes.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Denmark  and  Montenegro  are 
furnishing  the  best  stock  of  royalty  in  Europe 
just  now,  and  the  young  folks  in  those  royal 
families  are  in  great  demand  for  matrimonial 
purposes. 

Of  course  marriage  in  Europe,  especially  in 
royal  circles,  is  always  politics  or  business. 
One  exception  is  reported.  Helena,  one  of 
King  Nick's  daughters,  was  educated  by  an 
aunt  in  Russia.  She  was  good-looking,  and 
could  talk  French  like  a  Russian  or  fire  a  gun 
like  a  Montenegrin.  The  heir  to  the  throne 
of  Italy  met  her  in  Venice,  fell  in  love  with 


206  THE  NEAR  EAST 

her,  and  got  his  folks  to  arrange  the  match. 
She  has  made  good  as  princess,  queen,  and 
wife,  in  Italy. 

The  Montenegrin  idea  of  humor  is  peculiar. 
This  is  what  they  call  a  joke :  In  one  of  the 
battles  with  the  Turks  a  soldier  brought  in  a 
prisoner.  The  commander  told  him  to  go  and 
get  another.  He  returned  to  the  chase,  and 
soon  had  a  big  Turk  in  soak.  He  was  bring- 
ing in  his  man  when  a  stray  bullet  struck  his 
leg  and  down  he  went.  The  Turk  thought 
his  chance  had  come  and  started  for  the 
Montenegrin's  throat.  But  Monte  had  his 
pistol  out  and  up  went  the  Turk's  hands. 
Then  the  Montenegrin  made  the  Turk  take 
him  on  his  back,  and  rode  his  prisoner  tri- 
umphantly to  headquarters. 

This  happened  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  the 
Montenegrins  still  tell  this  as  a  good  joke  on 
the  Turk. 

About  one-fourth  of  the  men  in  Montene- 
gro were  killed  or  seriously  wounded  in  the 
last  year.  There  is  hardly  a  family  where  one 
or  more  of  the  men-folks  did  not  lose  their  lives 


THE  BLACK  MOUNTAIN  207 

in  the  war.  But  this  has  been  the  regular 
thing  for  so  many  generations  that  it  does 
not  impress  the  Montenegrins  so  much  as  it 
does  a  visitor.  The  hatred  of  the  Turk  has 
been  the  real  reHgion  of  the  country,  and  now 
I  am  afraid  the  people  will  stop  going  to 
church.  But  to  get  an  idea  of  the  condition 
in  Montenegro  today — and  it  has  been  the 
same  or  worse  any  time  in  500  years — imagine 
how  it  would  be  if  in  our  state  every  man  had 
been  to  war  and  that  one-fourth  had  been 
killed  or  crippled.  The  voice  of  mourning 
would  be  heard  everywhere.  But  apparently 
the  Montenegrins  almost  rejoice  in  their  suf- 
ferings and  losses.  Again  they  remind  me 
greatly  of  my  own  Irish  folks.  When  Pat 
comes  home  from  the  fair  with  his  head  band- 
aged, his  nose  broken  and  his  back  sprained, 
he  refuses  the  offer  of  sympathy  and  proudly 
exclaims,  "You  ought  to  see  the  other  fellow!" 
There  is  pride  in  the  Montenegrin's  heart, 
and  if  King  Nicholas  can  negotiate  the  loan 
which  he  is  now  trying  to  place,  there  will  be 
a  high  old  time  in  Cettinje — a  4th  of  July 
celebration  not  regulated  by  a  city  ordinance 
to  be  safe  and  sane. 


Delightful  Dalmatia 

Ragusa,  Dalmatia,  Sept.  21. 
On  the  map  it  will  be  seen  that  Austria  has 
a  shoestring  addition  running  down  the  east 
coast  of  the  Adriatic  Sea  as  far  as  Montenegro, 
shutting  off  the  old  Turkish  provinces  and 
Servia  from  a  glimpse  of  the  sea.  When  the 
Allied  Powers  of  Europe  defeated  Napoleon  a 
hundred  years  ago,  they  revised  the  map  to 
suit  themselves  wherever  they  could,  and 
Austria  took  Venice  and  this  strip  of  coast 
land  called  Dalmatia.  Venice  afterwards 
broke  away,  but  Dalmatia  has  been  held  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  population  is  not 
any  more  Austrian  than  it  is  English.  The 
people  are  Croats  or  Serbs,  and  are  Slavs  by 
race  and  language.  In  the  recent  Balkan  ex- 
citement they  were  very  much  pro-Serb,  and 
when  it  looked  as  if  Austria  might  get  into 
the  war  game,  public  sentiment  was  greatly 
with  the  brethren  across  the  border,  not  for 
Austria.     The  Vienna  government  filled  the 

(208) 


DELIGHTFUL  DALMATIA  209 


garrisons  calong  the  border  with  Austrian  and 
Hungarian  troops  and  sent  the  Dahnatian  sol- 
diers elsewhere,  just  to  avoid  unpleasant 
events  which  might  have  happened.  Very 
few  Dalmatians  speak  the  Austrian  language. 
Just  whj^  they  voluntarily  stick  to  the  Croatian 
tongue  is  hard  to  say,  unless  it  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  we  in  America  speak  English, — we 
were  born  that  way.  The  Croatian  is  a  dia- 
lect of  the  Serb  or  Russian,  with  a  few  more 
consonants. 

A  Croat  newspaper  reminds  me  of  that  old 
Irish  story  of  Mike  and  Pat  and  the  Chinese 
language.  The  two  Irish  lads  took  their 
laundry  to  a  Chinaman  and  received  his  re- 
ceipt. Mike  handed  it  to  Pat  and  asked  him 
to  read  it.  "Faith  and  I  can't  read  it,"  said 
Pat,  "but  if  I  had  my  flute  I  could  play  it." 

Our  first  stop  in  Dalmatia  was  at  Cattaro, 
in  order  to  make  the  ascent  into  INIontenegro. 
When  we  returned  we  stayed  there  several 
days  to  enjoy  the  restful  quiet  of  a  most  de- 
lightful town.  The  tourist  books  pay  little 
attention  to  Cattaro,  and  it  has  no  hotels  with 
elevators,  steam  heat  and  electric  light,  such 


210  THE  NEAR  EAST 

as  are  proudly  advertised  in  the  modern  cities. 
Cattaro  is  still  a  hundred  years  behind  the 
times,  with  no  indication  of  trying  to  catch 
up.  But  there  is  a  clean  and  comfortable 
little  hotel  called  the  Stadt  Gratz  which  fur- 
nishes good  eats  and  a  cheerful  atmosphere, 
so  that  anyone  who  is  willing  to  go  to  bed  by 
candlelight  and  take  a  bath  with  a  sponge  will 
find  it  equal  to  the  finest  in  Europe. 

For  several  hundred  years  Cattaro  was  right 
between  the  Turks  and  the  Venetians,  cap- 
tured and  sacked  every  few  years.  But  it 
finally  became  the  last  Christian  stronghold 
on  the  coast,  and  even  now  its  big  walls  and 
fortifications  are  the  strongest  in  southern 
Europe.  Within  these  walls,  about  forty  feet 
thick  and  thirty  feet  high,  is  the  little  town. 
To  enter  Cattaro  you  must  go  through  one  of 
the  three  gates,  and  every  night  at  11  o'clock 
the  gates  are  closed.  I  wondered  what  would 
happen  if  one  were  outside  the  gates  after  that 
hour,  and  then  I  wondered  what  anybody 
would  be  doing  out  after  11  o'clock.  At  that 
late  hour  the  Cattaronians  and  their  guests 
are  fast  asleep. 

No  horses  or  automobiles  are  allowed  within 


DELTCHTFTTL   DALMATIA  211 

the  city.  Just  outside  the  water-gate,  on  the 
quay,  there  are  carriages  for  hire  and  pack- 
horses,  donkeys  and  dray  wagons  arc  loaded 
and  unloaded.  But  inside  the  walls  of  the 
city  there  are  no  streets  big  enough  for  wagons, 
and  the  transportation  is  all  done  by  man- 
power. Imagine  this  little  city  of  Cattaro, 
located  on  a  strip  of  land  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
wide  between  high  mountain  and  deep  sea, 
surrounded  by  massive  walls,  houses  three  and 
four  stories  high,  narrow  streets  running  in 
every  direction  except  straight,  and  every- 
thing at  least  a  century  old,  quaint  and  pic- 
turesque. Four  thousand  people  live  here  all 
the  time,  and  most  of  them  probably  think  all 
towns  are  constructed  the  same  way. 

We  were  there  on  a  market  day  when  the 
Dalmatian  peasants  w^ith  their  bright-colored 
costumes,  and  the  neighbors  from  Montenegro 
and  Albania,  came  with  their  products  to  the 
market  just  outside  the  city.  The  Montene- 
grins and  Albanians  are  compelled  to  leave 
their  guns  and  pistols  at  the  border,  and  are 
thus  deprived  of  much  of  their  glory.  But 
such  a  market  with  such  folks  and  such  cos- 


212  THE  NEAR  EAST 

tumes  puts  a  comic  opera  into  a  back  seat  for 
interest  and  entertainment. 

As  an  addition  to  the  color  scheme  the  Aus- 
trian government  has  a  garrison  of  5,000  men 
just  outside  the  wall,  and  I  think  every  regi- 
ment has  a  different  and  more  striking  uni- 
form. Among  these  soldiers  and  peasants 
with  their  brilliant  raiment,  a  tourist  in  a 
gray  suit  and  a  straw  hat  naturally  attracts 
attention,  and  I  felt  as  important  as  a  boy 
scout  in  uniform  at  a  Sunday-school  picnic. 

The  greatness  of  Cattaro  is  in  its  harbor. 
The  Adriatic  comes  in  among  the  mountains 
so  that  it  practically  forms  a  chain  of  lakes, 
and  Cattaro,  twenty  miles  from  the  open  sea, 
has  a  quiet,  deep  harbor  which  would  be  worth 
a  billion  dollars  on  the  Atlantic.  That  is  the 
reason  why  Austria  wanted  Cattaro  and  keeps 
it  so  well  guarded.  That  is  also  the  reason 
why  Montenegro,  just  over  the  mountain, 
dreams  of  the  day  when  Cattaro  will  be  under 
the  red,  white  and  blue  flag  of  the  Black  Moun- 
tain. 

The  entire  Dalmatian  coast  is  a  winter  re- 
sort of  central  Europe.     Its  climate  is  like  that 


DELIGHTFUL  DALMATIA  213 

of  the  French  Riviera  or  our  own  Florida.  In 
beauty  of  sea  and  mountain  it  is  at  least  equal 
to  the  wonderful  coast  of  Nice  and  Monte 
Carlo.  The  city  of  Ragusa  is  the  chief  at- 
traction, although  Cattaro  and  other  places 
are  even  more  beautiful.  But  Ragusa  has  a 
history,  ruins  of  Roman  temples  and  a  big 
first-class  hotel.  Its  vegetation  is  almost  trop- 
ical, with  the  palm,  the  oleander  and  the  or- 
ange growing  beside  the  cypress  and  the  olive. 
It  lies  on  a  peninsula  jutting  out  from  the 
mountains,  and  the  breeze  from  Africa's 
heated  sands  comes  north  up  the  Adriatic. 
Like  Cattaro,  it  is  a  walled  town,  with  curious 
little  streets  and  odd  architecture  which  make 
an  artist  thirsty  with  yearnings  to  copy  the 
works  of  man  as  well  as  of  nature. 

I  never  knew  much  of  Ragusa,  and  yet  for 
400  years  it  was  a  more  important  figure  in 
history  than  was  Kansas.  It  had  a  nice  little 
harbor  and  an  enterprising  commercial  club 
long  before  Columbus  went  into  the  discovery 
business.  In  1400  it  got  its  independence  and 
kept  it  for  400  years,  the  only  town  in  that 
vicinity  which  was  not  conquered  and  annexed 


214  THE  NEAR  EAST 

by  Turkey  or  Venice.  They  wanted  Ragusa, 
for  it  was  an  important  place.  The  Ragusans 
had  organized  a  repubhc,  and  its  prosperity 
was  a  sore  eye  for  the  Turks  and  Venetians. 
But  the  Ragusans  fought  them  off,  and  in 
spite  of  war,  pestilence  and  earthquakes,  all 
of  which  came  to  pass,  they  maintained  their 
republic  for  four  centuries,  until  Napoleon 
came  and  took  them  into  his  control.  When 
the  Napoleonic  wars  ended,  Austria  grabbed 
Ragusa  and  its  day  of  independence  was  over. 
But  the  Ragusans  themselves  have  not  got- 
ten over  their  old  ways.  They  submit  to 
Austrian  authority,  but  they  turn  up  their 
noses  at  Austria.  They  run  their  own  local 
affairs  and  pretend  to  a  good  deal  of  inde- 
pendence which  they  do  not  have.  They  en- 
joy the  reputation  of  being  "rich."  In  the 
old  days  to  be  a  Ragusan  was  to  be  a  pluto- 
crat, and  the  Ragusans  of  the  present  keep 
up  the  bluff.  I  know  of  no  community  in 
Europe  where  there  are  so  few  indications  of 
poverty  or  where  the  people  affect  to  despise 
the  money  of  the  tourist  as  in  Ragusa.  Of 
course  much  of  this  independence  is  "put  on," 
or  born  in,  but  it  makes  a  unique  and  rather 


DELIGHTFUL   DALMATIA  215 

pleasing  citizenship  when  contrasted  with  the 
often  servile  and  always  poor  class  that  is 
present  elsewhere. 

A  few  miles  away  and  almost  in  front  of 
Ragusa  is  the  island  La  Croma,  with  a  won- 
derful old  castle  and  a  beautiful  park.  When 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  king  of  England,  left 
his  realm  to  hunt  adventure  and  Mohamme- 
dans, he  was  crossing  the  Adriatic  in  a  small 
ship.  A  storm  came  up  and  it  looked  as  if 
Richard  would  be  put  out  of  the  crusading 
business.  As  was  customary  in  those  days, 
he  made  a  vow  that  if  he  reached  the  shore 
alive  he  would  build  a  church  on  the  place 
where  he  landed.  The  wind  and  wave  threw 
the  boat  onto  this  island,  and  Richard  kept 
his  vow  by  constructing  the  church  and  a 
castle  which  are  still  worthy  of  a  royal  resi- 
dence. Richard  liked  the  country  so  well  that 
he  lingered  a  while  and  enjoyed  himself  fight- 
ing Byzantines,  but  finally  he  pulled  out  for 
Palestine,  with  everything  he  could  carry,  but 
he  had  to  leave  the  island  behind.  An  order 
of  monks  was  established  at  La  Croma,  but 
in  recent  years  the  Austrian  government  has 


216  THE  NEAR  EAST 

bought  the  place,  which  is  remarkable  for  its 
beauty  even  on  this  beautiful  coast. 

There  is  only  one  real  street  in  Ragusa,  and 
it  goes  through  the  center  of  the  city.  It  be- 
gins at  a  wonderful  old  gate  and  ends  at  the 
gate  leading  to  the  sea.  On  both  sides  it  is 
lined  with  shops  that  sell  to  tourists,  every- 
thing from  Persian  rugs  to  glass  beads,  from 
ancient  pistols  to  post-cards.  It  is  a  continu- 
ous fair  all  the  year  round,  and  is  a  separator 
of  the  man  and  the  woman  from  the  money. 

Again  we  have  the  bright-colored  costumes. 
In  Dalmatia  a  man  has  a  right  to  dress  him- 
self like  a  Christmas  tree  if  he  wants  to — and 
he  usually  does.  No  lady  considers  herself 
properly  attired  unless  she  has  the  rainbow 
rivaled  for  color.  The  Austrian  soldiers  strut 
up  and  down  the  avenues  and  do  their  part  in 
the  play.  The  fragrance  of  flowers,  the  music 
of  the  gipsy  band  and  the  song  of  the  sea  as 
it  beats  on  the  rocks,  fill  the  air  with  a  gentle 
harmony.  Ragusa  is  indeed  a  land  of  pure 
delight — and  it  has  a  good  hotel. 


The  Balkan  Brethren 

MosTAR,  Herzegovina,  Sept.  22. 
For  two  good  reasons  we  have  not  visited 
Bulgaria.  The  first  was  that  the  neighboring 
countries,  Servia  and  Turkey,  through  which  it 
was  necessary  to  go  to  reach  Bulgaria,  would 
not  let  us  pass.  The  second  was  that  if  we 
had  slipped  into  Bulgaria  by  some  roundabout 
way  we  would  have  been  quarantined  on  ac- 
count of  cholera,  which  is  said  to  be  doing 
business.  Our  experience  with  the  carbolic- 
acid  quarantine  of  Austria  was  sufficient  along 
that  line,  and  Bulgaria  was  not  visited.  Dur- 
ing the  last  three  months  Bulgaria  has  been  at 
war  with  Turkey,  and  then  with  Servia, 
Montenegro,  Greece,  and  Roumania.  The 
tales  that  were  told  us  of  the  terrible  Bulgars 
were  enough  to  ruin  the  reputation  of  any 
people.  We  have  had  to  learn  about  Bulgaria 
from  the  neighbors,  never  a  good  source  of 
information,  and  especially  not  with  the  bitter 


(217) 


218  THE  NEAR  EAST 

feeling  against  Bulgaria  now  held  by  every 
other  nation  in  the  Balkans. 

But  I  do  not  believe  all  the  stories  of  Bul- 
garian atrocities,  or  rather  I  think  the  atrocity 
business  was  so  general  in  the  Balkans  the 
past  year  that  it  is  not  fair  to  give  any  one 
special  mention  or  denunciation.  Tales  of 
cruelties,  of  massacres  and  of  bad  conduct  are 
doubtless  based  on  some  facts,  but  my  guess 
is  that  Servians,  Montenegrins,  Greeks  and 
Turks  were  in  about  the  same  class  with  the 
Bulgarians. 

One  must  always  remember  that  these  peo- 
ple were  under  Turkish  domination  for  500 
years,  and  were  living  and  making  war  under 
the  old  rules.  It  has  been  less  than  200  years 
since  the  French  and  Indians  massacred  Amer- 
ican colonists.  Still  more  recently  the  English 
and  their  Indian  allies  committed  all  kinds  of 
outrages  on  the  exposed  settlements  of  the 
Americans.  I  imagine  the  Americans  were  at 
least  revengeful  in  their  reprisals,  and  if  the 
truth  were  known  did  some  massacring  on 
their  own  account.  The  Balkan  people  were 
only  doing  as  they  had  always  done  and  as 


THE  BALKAN  BRETHREN  219 


the  Turks  always  did,  when  they  displayed 
fierce  tempers  and  committed  awful  atrocities, 
and  they  always  had  the  excuse  of  the  other 
fellow  having  done  the  same  thing  or  worse. 

Bulgaria  was  the  last  of  the  Balkan  states 
to  wriggle  out  from  under  Turkish  rule.  Ser- 
via  has  been  practically  independent  for  a 
century.  Bulgaria  got  its  first  recognition  in 
1878,  but  was  tributary  to  Turkey  until  1908, 
only  five  years  ago.  Her  people  had  500 
years  of  oppression  to  remember  and  to  re- 
venge on  the  Turks.  They  are  not  nice,  high- 
minded  folks  according  to  our  standard,  but 
they  are  the  natural  development  under  such 
conditions,  and  now  that  they  are  recognized 
as  an  independent  people  they  will  rapidly 
learn  the  ways  of  civilization  and  unlearn  those 
of  the  Turk. 

The  Bulgarians  are  a  different  people  from 
their  neighbors.  They  are  Slavs  and  Greek 
Catholics  and  very  much  the  same  race,  but 
they  are  a  slower,  steadier  and  harder-working 
people.  The  Servians  and  Greeks  call  them 
*' farmers,"  and  they  are,  but  that  is  their 
strength,  for  their  country  is  fertile  and  they 


220  THE  NEAR  EAST 

are  industrious.  They  are  unquestionably  the 
strongest  of  the  Balkan  states.  They  led  the 
hard  fighting  against  Turkey  and  were  en- 
titled to  the  largest  share  of  the  spoils.  Prob- 
ably they  wanted  too  much,  and  thus  forced 
the  others  to  combine  against  them,  and 
Roumania,  Greece,  Servia  and  Montenegro 
were  too  strong  for  Bulgaria.  In  six  months 
the  Bulgarians  made  a  great  reputation,  and 
then  by  breaking  with  their  allies  lost  that 
reputation.  It  may  have  been  justice  or  it 
may  have  been  hard  luck.  In  either  event 
the  Servians,  Greeks  and  Montenegrins  now 
hate  the  Bulgarians  more  than  they  do  their 
ancient  enemy,  the  Turks ;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  story  is  believed  in  Europe  that 
Bulgaria  is  ready  to  join  with  the  Turks  to 
lick  the  Greeks  and  Servians. 

Every  one  of  these  little  nations  is  now  pre- 
paring for  the  next  war.  The  people  are  do- 
ing this  and  not  merely  the  governments. 
Bulgaria  wants  a  little  time,  Greece  and  Servia 
are  likely  to  quarrel,  for  they  never  have  been 
friends,  and  the  general  opinion  is  that  Bul- 
garia can  whip  either  one  if  some  one  like 


Prcpariiuj  fur  the  next  ivar — "///  the  miuntimr,  ivatr/i  the 
miiilc  on  the  face  of  our  Turkish  friend." 


THE  BALKAN  BRETHREN  221 


Austria  or  Turkey  will  hold  the  other  fellow. 
In  the  mean  time  Bulgaria  is  establishing 
schools  and  buying  up-to-date  guns,  so  as  to 
be  ready.  The  Powers  of  Europe  dread  a  war, 
because  it  might  spread  like  a  prairie-fire. 
Austria  will  stand  with  Bulgaria  and  Russia 
is  apt  to  go  with  Servia.  Thus  far  these  big 
nations  have  done  nothing  but  give  advice 
and  spend  money  mobihzing  their  troops. 
But  an  outrage  on  the  frontier,  or  an  insult 
to  an  oflicial,  might  be  the  spark  in  the  powder- 
box  that  would  start  the  bunch  to  shooting, 
and  then  nobody  knows  what  would  happen. 
In  the  mean  time,  vratch  the  smile  on  our 
Turkish  friends. 

The  Balkan  states  in  their  present  situation 
are  a  good  deal  like  what  is  known  in  Ameri- 
can pugilistic  circles  as  a  "battle  royal."  In 
this  kind  of  a  fight  a  half-dozen  men  are  put 
into  a  ring  and  the  fight  is  every  man  for  him- 
self. The  fighter  who  stands  up  the  longest 
wins  the  prize.  In  the  Balkan  ring  are  Bul- 
garia, Servia,  Roumania,  Greece,  Montenegro, 
and  Turkey.  Montenegro  really  should  count 
as  an  ally  of  Servia.     Albania  is  a  small  boy 


222  THE  NEAR  EAST 


about  to  be  pushed  in.  These  states  will 
pommel  and  fight  one  another  until  there  is 
only  one  left,  and  he  will  get  the  prize — Con- 
stantinople and  supremacy.  There  is  also 
danger  that  two  big  chaps  named  Austria  and 
Russia  may  jump  in  and  knock  down  the  last 
weakened  fellows  and  take  the  stake  them- 
selves. Every  one  of  these  nations  is  taxing 
its  people  heavily  to  prepare  for  this  coming 
war,  and  every  man  from  16  to  65  is  liable  to 
be  called  to  the  colors.  It  is  a  distressing 
situation,  and  to  one  who  believes  in  peace 
and  arbitration  and  fair  play  it  looks  very 
dark.  But  the  people  over  here  in  the  Bal- 
kans, who  have  been  in  such  a  game  ever 
since  their  ancestors  came  from  Asia,  are  ap- 
parently anxious  for  the  gong  to  sound  that 
will  start  the  big  scrap. 

Except  in  a  few  small  locahties  like  Bosnia 
and  in  Macedonia  and  Albania,  the  Turks  are 
no  longer  to  be  found  a  hundred  miles  away 
from  Constantinople.  The  Turkish  merchants 
sold  or  shipped  their  stuff  and  the  Turkish 
farmer  and  his  family  marched  off  with  the 
buffalo  and  the  donkey,  carrying  personal  ef- 


THE  BALKAN   BRETHREN  223 

fects  hut  leaving  the  land  to  the  conquering 
Christians.  No  doubt  they  remembered  the 
generations  of  oppression  which  they  had  in- 
flicted, and  feared  that  there  would  be  an 
evening-up.  Only  the  quarrel  of  the  Balkan 
states  permits  Turkey  to  hold  Constantinople, 
one  of  the  greatest  locations  for  a  commercial 
city  in  the  world. 

The  Turkish  empire  is  still  strong  in  Asia, 
and  really  ought  to  go  over  to  that  side  of  the 
Bospliorus  and  sit  down.  When  that  is  done, 
Turkey  will  be  stronger  because  of  not  being 
always  on  a  strain  to  defend  Constantinople. 

Aside  from  the  habit  of  carrying  guns  and 
looking  fierce,  the  people  who  live  in  the  Bal- 
kan states  are  well  behaved  and  kindly.  Ex- 
cept in  Greece  the  ruling  race  is  Slav,  and  all 
are  of  the  same  religion.  A  family  row  is 
always  worse  than  any  other  kind. 

Every  one  of  these  countries  is  establishing 
schools  and  modeling  after  the  civilization  of 
the  West.  They  never  speak  of  themselves 
as  part  of  "Europe"  anj^  more  than  did  the 
ancient  Greeks.  They  are  getting  their  guns 
and  military  training  from  Europe,  their  no- 


224  THE  NEAR  EAST 


tions  of  government  from  Europe,  and  soon 
they  will  be  wearing  stiff  hats  and  tight  skirts, 
just  as  they  do  in  Europe.  The  big  bankers 
of  London,  Paris,  Berlin  and  Vienna  are  loan- 
ing money  to  the  Balkans  for  Avar  and  for  im- 
provements. Land  titles,  which  were  not 
good  under  the  Turks,  are  being  cleared  and 
fixed,  so  that  capital  is  preparing  to  exploit 
the  Balkans  as  it  has  the  Argentine  Republic. 
The  war-cloud  is  the  only  drawback  to  pros- 
perity, farm  mortgages,  high  taxes,  good  roads, 
colleges,  and  works  of  art.  A  man  could  take 
a  little  money  now  and  go  into  the  Balkans 
with  a  better  chance  to  make  a  big  profit  than 
he  could  anywhere  in  Europe,  or  perhaps  in 
America. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  encourage  anyone  to 
emigrate  to  this  land  of  firearms  and  feuds. 
A  section  of  Kansas  land  is  worth  more  than 
any  Balkan  I  have  seen.  To  make  a  home 
and  live  happy  ever  afterward,  I  would  prefer 
Arkansas  or  Breathitt  county,  Kentucky. 

There  will  be  plenty  of  news  out  of  the  Bal- 
kans in  the  next  years,  and  much  of  it  will  be 
obituary.     Each  nation  is  ready  to  fight  at 


THE  BALKAN  BRETHREN  225 

the  drop  of  the  hat,  and  each  is  wilhng  to  drop 
the  hat  if  he  thinks  it  is  to  his  advantage. 
The  Balkan  blouse  is  a  Paris-made  garment, 
but  the  Balkan  belt  of  many  colors  carries  a 
loaded  gun,  and  my  observation  is  that  a  man 
or  a  boy  with  a  loaded  gun  is  sure  to  find  some 
mark  to  shoot  at.  The  presence  of  the  Turk 
no  longer  forces  the  Balkanese  to  keep  from 
open  enmity.  I  was  told  a  story  illustrating 
the  present  situation. 

A  Greek,  a  Bulgarian  and  a  Turk  were  to- 
gether in  a  boat,  and  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion turned  upon  what  they  most  desired.  It 
was  suggested  that  each  tell  the  wish  dearest 
to  his  heart,  and  the  Greek  began : 

"I  am  wishing  that  there  will  be  many  new 
graveyards  in  Bulgaria." 

The  Bulgarian  followed  with  his  wish,  that 
the  Greeks  would  die  like  flies  in  the  winter- 
time. 

"And  what  is  your  wish?"  was  asked  of  the 
Turk. 

"That  both  of  j^our  wishes  come  true." 


A  Turkish  Town 

MosTAR,  Herzegovina,  Sept.  23. 
This  is  a  Turkish  town,  more  Turkish  than 
many  of  the  towns  in  Turkey.  Herzegovina 
and  Bosnia  are  two  small  provinces  which  in 
the  centuries  gone  by  were  often  independent. 
But  about  the  year  1500  the  conquering  Mo- 
hammedans swept  over  these  two  Balkan 
states,  and  they  were  Turkish  soil  until  five 
years  ago.  At  that  time,  when  Bulgaria 
reached  out  and  took  a  slice  of  Turkey  on  the 
south,  Austria-Hungary  moved  in  its  troops 
and  declared  that  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina, 
about  20,000  square  miles  of  land  and  a  mill- 
ion people,  were  annexed  to  the  Austrian  em- 
pire. It  was  so  sudden  that  Turkey  had  no 
chance  to  resist  and  the  other  Balkan  states 
could  only  get  red  in  the  face  and  protest — all 
of  which  had  no  effect  on  Austria.  This  an- 
nexation without  war  or  fighting,  left  the  pop- 
ulation intact,  and  over  half  of  it  is  Moham- 
medan.    The  Austrian  government  has  built 

(226) 


A   TURKISH   TOWN  S^T 

railroads  and  started  schools,  but  it  has  left 
the  religious  and  race  questions  alone,  so  the 
Turks  stayed  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  and 
did  not  leave  when  their  flag  went  down  as 
they  did  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria. 

In  Mostar  there  are  14,000  people,  a  ma- 
jority of  them  Turks,  and  it  is  said  to  be  the 
best  place  left  in  Europe  to  see  the  Turk  of  the 
rural  district  in  his  natural  ways.  The  sol- 
diers in  the  garrison  are  the  gaily  uniformed 
Austrians,  but  the  Turks  go  back  and  forth 
about  their  work  or  their  business,  paying  no 
attention  to  the  soldiers  or  the  change  of  sov- 
ereignty which  has  affected  them  so  little. 
The  women  wear  their  yashmaks,  cover  them- 
selves from  the  gaze  of  men-folks,  and  in  Mos- 
tar they  add  a  black  hood  of  stiff  material 
which  sticks  out  in  front  like  the  beak  of  a 
bird.  I  have  no  objection  to  the  Turkish  la- 
dies wearing  as  manj^  veils  or  as  shapeless 
gowns  as  they  please.  But  when  they  come 
down  the  street  with  those  black  beaks,  and 
nothing  in  sight  except  a  pair  of  eyes,  they 
almost  get  on  my  nerves.  One  wonders 
whether  they  arc  really  truly  women  or  some 
new  specimen  of  a  high-class  animal.     As  you 


228  THE  NEAR  EAST 

cannot  remember  any  woman  of  your  ac- 
quaintance who  would  hide  her  face  and  wear 
foolish  clothes  just  to  keep  men  from  admiring 
her,  they  make  a  most  uncanny  impression  on 
you  as  they  slip  noiselessly  along  the  road. 

The  street  is  lined  with  small  shops.  The 
Turk  here  is  often  an  artisan  who  does  silver 
inlaid  work,  hammers  brass  and  makes  those 
ornaments  and  utensils  that  are  known  every- 
where as  Turkish  goods.  The  merchant  squats 
in  his  little  shop  and  takes  as  much  time  as 
possible  to  make  a  sale.  He  will  not  hurry 
and  he  never  seems  anxious.  But  he  will  cut 
the  price  and  expects  to  do  so,  the  only  ques- 
tion being  how  much.  The  Turkish  farmer 
and  his  donkey  are  in  with  the  vegetables  his 
wife  has  raised,  and  the  town  Turkesses  ex- 
amine the  wares  through  their  veils  and  bar- 
gain away,  the  only  real  pleasure  they  have 
in  common  with  their  Christian  visitors. 

I  have  found  no  one  in  Mostar  who  can 
speak  English,  and  so  my  information  comes 
slow.  Of  course  the  hotel  people  and  the  of- 
ficials speak  German.  They  tell  me  that  a 
Turk  is  a  good  citizen  who  keeps  his  word  and 


A   TTTRKISTI    TOWN  '2'-20 

is  honest.  He  is  not  progressive.  If  you  do 
not  try  to  change  him  or  his  ways  you  will 
like  him.  If  you  want  to  reform  his  habits 
or  teach  him  a  better  road  to  the  mansions 
in  the  skies,  he  will  not  understand  you  and 
your  work  is  lost.  When  the  government 
orders  in  sewers  or  cuts  off  a  contaminated 
water  supply,  the  Turk  is  outraged,  for  he 
knows  that  so  far  as  he  is  concerned  he  will 
go  to  Heaven  when  his  appointed  time  comes, 
and  he  has  no  respect  for  scientific  efforts  to 
get  an  extension  of  the  limit  to  his  stay  in 
this  vale  of  tears. 

We  expected  to  be  frightened  by  the  Turks, 
and  at  first  I  had  to  encourage  myself  by  re- 
peating that  no  harm  could  possibly  come  to 
an  American  when  an  Austrian  brigade  was 
quartered  within  a  mile  and  he  had  a  passport, 
with  a  big  red  seal,  safe  in  his  inside  pocket. 
But  the  Turks  were  kindly  and  apparently 
paid  no  attention  to  anything  except  a  fairly 
legitimate  effort  to  exchange  old  brass  for  real 
money.  Soon  we  felt  safer  than  we  would 
around  the  union  depot  at  Kansas  City  or  on 
Broadwav  in  New  York — and  we  were.     The 


230  THE   NEAR   EAST 

Turks  are  on  the  square  with  everyone,  ex- 
cept, of  course,  when  there  is  a  war,  in  which 
case  they  are  just  hke  their  neighbors. 

Herzegovina  and  Bosnia  have  a  chmate  a 
good  deal  hke  Kansas,  and  the  products  are 
about  the  same.  The  land  is  mountainous, 
but  there  are  many  good  valleys  and  tillable 
hillsides.  In  fact,  this  part  of  the  mountains 
is  the  best  country  I  have  seen  in  the  eastern 
Balkans.  The  Austrian  government  has  built 
a  narrow-gauge  railroad  from  the  deep  water 
at  Gravosa  through  the  Turkish  provinces  to 
Buda  Pesth.  Up  to  a  few  years  ago  there  was 
no  way  to  get  into  Herzegovina  except  to  hire 
a  mule,  and  then  it  was  necessary  to  walk 
and  lead  the  mule.  I  had  never  met  but  one 
American  who  said  he  had  been  in  Mostar, 
and  he  walked  through  the  country.  But  this 
way  is  now  open,  and  the  railroad  will  surely 
take  to  the  old  Turks  many  luxuries,  comforts 
and  bad  habits  of  which  they  have  never  even 
dreamed. 

It  will  doubtless  strike  some  people  as  sur- 
prising that  in  this  old  Turkish  town,  where 
there  were  no   hotels   or  railroad   or  street- 


A   TURKISH   TOWN  231 


cleaning  a  few  years  ago,  it  is  now  a  pleasant 
place  to  stay,  providing  j^ou  do  not  mind  a 
few  loud  and  piercing  odors  in  the  business 
part  of  the  city.  The  fact  is,  Austria  is  a 
good  housekeeper  and  makes  its  folks  come  to 
reasonable  cleanliness.  Then  there  is  a  gar- 
rison of  5,000  soldiers,  and  where  there  are 
5,000  Austrians  there  will  be  a  good  hotel  also, 
with  plenty  to  eat  and  more  than  that  to 
drink.  A  comfortable  hotel  comes  as  naturally 
to  this  new  Austrian  possession  as  a  lumber 
yard  to  a  new  town  opened  in  Kansas.  The 
Austrian  government  may  have  its  faults,  but 
it  builds  good  roads,  constructs  railways,  and 
provides  clean  hotels  in  every  place  where  it 
raises  its  flag.  There  may  be  better  objects 
of  government,  but  none  now  occur  to  my 
mind.  The  Austrians  go  on  the  theory  that 
if  3^ou  keep  a  man's  stomach  full  and  give  him 
a  good  place  to  sleep,  he  will  not  start  an  in- 
surrection or  make  trouble  for  the  police. 

On  the  railroad  near  Mostar  I  noticed 
women  working  on  the  section,  and  they  were 
apparently  doing  a  good  job,  tamping  the  bal- 


232  THE  NEAR  EAST 

last  or  the  rails,  or  whatever  it  is  they  do  to 
the  track.  They  were  not  Turkish  women, 
but  Christian  women.  The  Turks  do  not  let 
their  women  work  on  the  railroad  track. 
Probably  they  will  sometime  learn  better  and 
be  as  liberal  with  their  women-folks  as  the 
neighbor  who  now  condemns  the  Turk  for 
making  his  wife  wear  a  veil.  There  is  so 
much  in  this  world  of  ours  that  seems  im- 
portant to  us  because  of  the  point  of  view 
from  which  we  make  our  observations. 

An  Irishman  contemplated  an  oak  tree  and 
a  pumpkin  vine.  He  noted  that  the  big  tree 
produced  a  little  acorn  and  the  vine  a  big 
pumpkin,  and  he  criticized  the  Creator  for 
such  an  illogical  arrangement. 

"If  I  had  the  job,"  he  said,  "I'd  make  the 
big  tree  raise  the  pumpkin  and  let  the  little 
vine  have  the  acorn." 

Then  the  Irishman  lay  down  beneath  the 
spreading  oak  for  a  nap.  An  acorn  fell  and 
hit  him  a  smart  rap  on  the  face.  He  sat  up, 
scratched  his  head  and  confessed : 

"The  Creator  knew  what  he  was  about.  If 
that  acorn  had  been  a  pumpkin  I'd  have  had 
no  head." 


A   TURKISH  TOWN  233 

The  point  to  this  story  is  that  perhaps  it  is 
not  best  to  sympathize  with  the  Turkish 
woman  because  she  has  to  cover  up  her  face. 
If  she  did  not,  she  might  have  to  work  on  the 
railroad. 

The  fariaoing  is  still  done  with  a  wooden 
plow  and  a  team  of  oxen.  Fields  are  small 
and  labor  is  plenty,  so  the  need  of  machinery 
is  not  felt.  Threshing  is  done  by  hand.  But 
the  main  crops  here  are  vegetables,  tobacco, 
and  corn,  the  same  corn  we  have  in  Kansas. 
Cattle  and  sheep  are  raised  cheaply,  and  are 
worth  only  about  half  as  much  as  with  us. 
A  donkey  is  the  best  transportation,  and  one 
costs  fifteen  or  twenty  dollars.  Day  labor  is 
about  a  dollar  a  month  and  board,  the  latter 
item  being  exceedingly  plain.  But  everybody 
seems  to  have  enough  to  eat  of  some  kind, 
and  so  long  as  a  man  is  satisfied  with  soup 
and  potatoes,  with  mutton  on  great  occasions, 
there  is  no  need  for  him  to  worry  over  the 
condition  of  the  country.  The  Turk  is  a  tall, 
fine-looking  chap  who  looks  healthy  and 
hearty  and  acts  as  if  he  had  a  cinch  on  this 
world  and  the  next.     He  wants  his  tobacco. 


234  THE  NEAR  EAST 


his  coffee,  leisure  to  think,  and  plenty  of  veils 
on  his  women-folks.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  happy, 
if  you  are  a  Turk. 


The  Near  East 

Venice,  Sept.  25. 
This  is  the  old  door  to  the  Near  East.  As 
we  came  across  the  Adriatic  and  the  oriental 
architecture  of  Venice  loomed  large  on  the 
horizon,  I  could  not  but  think  how  for  700 
years  the  Venetian  Republic  dominated  the 
seas  and  coasts  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean 
and  its  adjacent  waters.  It  is  hard  to  appre- 
ciate this  fact.  Less  than  500  years  have 
passed  since  the  discovery  of  America,  and 
that  seems  a  long  time.  But  from  about  the 
year  1000  to  about  the  year  1700  Venice  was 
one  of  the  powers  of  Europe.  Her  ships  car- 
ried the  commerce  between  the  East  and  the 
West,  and  did  the  carrying  trade  of  the  East. 
Commerce  always  brings  wealth,  and  for  700 
years  Venice  was  as  prosperous  and  as  sure 
of  everlasting  power  as  the  United  States  is 
today.  The  fleet  of  Venice  stopped  the  Mo- 
hammedan advance  and  saved  Europe  to 
Christianity.     The  blind  doge  of  Venice,  Dan- 

(235) 


236  THE  NEAR  EAST 

dolo,  conquered  Constantinople,  and  while 
that  city  was  not  permanently  held,  for  cen- 
turies Venice  owned  or  controlled  the  shores 
of  the  Adriatic  and  the  islands  of  the  ^Egean. 
Venice  became  eastern  rather  than  western. 
Her  trade  was  with  the  Near  East  and  she 
was  the  most  important  city  of  that  indefinite 
region  known  as  the  Levant.  I  have  often 
read  of  the  Levant,  but  never  realized  what 
the  word  meant.  It  is  the  comm^on  name 
used  by  the  people  of  the  Near  East  when  they 
speak  of  their  collective  individuality.  The 
Levant  is  that  country  around  the  Mediter- 
ranean sea  east  of  Italy,  including  Turkey, 
Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Greece,  northern  Africa, 
the  Adriatic  and  iEgean  seas,  and  all  that  in 
them  is.  It  is  a  region  of  tropical  conditions, 
blue  skies,  peculiar  peoples  and  confusion  of 
races.  But  it  is  a  trade  territory,  and  is  as 
close  together  comm.ercially  as  the  Trans-Mis- 
sissippi country  is  in  the  United  States.  A 
business  house  at  Alexandria  in  Egypt  will 
have  branches  at  Constantinople,  Smyrna,  and 
Athens,  with  agents  and  connections  in  every 
city  comprised  in  what  I  have  described  as 
the   Levant.     It    is    different   from    Europe, 


THE  NEAR  EAST  237 

rather  Asiatic  than  European,  and  it  has  been 
a  httlc  world  of  its  own  ever  since  the  Greeks 
dominated  its  territory  and  when  Paul  and 
Peter  and  other  apostles  of  Christianity  trav- 
ersed its  highways  and  byways  organizing 
churches  and  preaching  the  gospel  to  all  men. 
The  Le\^ant  is  the  birthplace  of  the  world's 
great  religions,  the  location  of  all  the  world 
that  was  known  or  is  known  about  prior  to 
the  Roman  Empire.  Until  the  discovery  of 
America  in  149!2  the  Mediterranean  was  the 
only  sea  in  the  world  that  was  understood  and 
explored.  During  the  time  from  the  begin- 
nings of  Palestine  and  Egypt  up  to  1492  the 
Mediterranean  was  the  greatest  water  in  the 
world,  the  only  one  of  which  our  histories  tell 
us. 

When  Columbus  sailed  the  waters  blue  he 
not  only  discovered  a  new  world,  but  he  al- 
most put  the  Levant  and  all  its  commercial 
centers  out  of  business.  Every  activity  shifted 
from  the  Near  East  to  the  Great  West.  \'en- 
ice  struggled  on  for  a  couple  of  hundred  j^ears, 
but  lost  her  prestige.  The  countries  around 
the  Mediterranean  were  no  longer  the  place 


238  THE  NEAR  EAST 

for  an  active  business  man.  The  smart  fel- 
lows took  Horace  Greeley's  advice  long  before 
Horace  gave  it,  and  went  west  to  grow  up 
with  the  country.  They  have  kept  on  going, 
first  across  the  Atlantic,  then  across  the  Mis- 
sissippi, then  over  the  plains  of  Kansas  and 
the  mountains  of  California,  until  the  march 
westward  is  now  in  the  far  east  of  China  and 
Japan.  All  these  last  centuries  the  Near  East 
has  been  standing  still  or  going  back,  neglected 
by  the  outsiders  and  demoralized  in  itself. 

Now  the  Near  East  is  going  to  come  back. 
I  am  no  prophet,  but  I  have  seen  how  booms 
start  in  Kansas,  and  that  is  what  is  going  to 
happen  in  the  Levant.  The  deadening  influ- 
ence of  Mohammed  is  being  pushed  aside,  the 
old  mines  are  ready  to  be  worked,  and  as  soon 
as  civilization  realizes  the  opportunities  in  the 
Levant  those  who  now  incumber  the  earth 
there  will  be  moved  off  or  regenerated,  and  the 
world  known  by  the  writers  of  the  Greek  phi- 
losophy and  the  Christian  gospels  will  once 
more  pulsate  with  real  life. 

The  great  business  of  this  territory  is  done 
by  water,  for  the  old  commercial  centers  are 
on  the  coasts.     But  the  railroads,  the  tele- 


THE  NEAR  EAST  239 

graph  and  the  motor  car  are  pushing  into  the 
back  country.  What  would  Paul  say  to  tak- 
ing a  train  for  Ephesus?  Wouldn't  it  jar  old 
Demosthenes  if  he  were  present  today  and 
rode  in  an  express  train  to  Macedonia?  How 
would  Rameses  feel  when  he  heard  the  train 
whistle  for  Luxor,  Egypt?  And  Haroun-al- 
Rashid,  the  hero  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  would 
be  shocked  to  a  frazzle  when  the  brakeman 
called  "Bagdad."  Up  till  five  years  ago  Ab- 
dul-Hamid  refused  to  permit  telephones  in 
Constantinople.  But  the  wires  are  up  now 
and  the  "hello  girls"  in  central  will  soon  know 
all  the  secrets  of  the  harems.  I  saw  the  same 
motor  car  in  Athens  that  I  do  in  Hutchinson, 
and  the  way  it  honked  would  have  given  Soc- 
rates something  to  worry  about.  Every  city 
in  the  Levant  has  a  commercial  club,  a  mov- 
ing-picture show,  and  a  department  of  pub- 
licity. All  the  Levant  needs  now  to  enjoy  a 
regular  Kansas  boom  is  a  number  of  first-class 
funerals,  a  little  more  education,  and  better 
real-estate  titles  to  secure  farm  mortgages. 

Venice  is  one  of  the  interesting  cities  of  the 
world.     Everyone  knows  how  it  was  started — 


240  THE  NEAR  EAST 

by  fugitives  from  the  mainland  of  Italy,  driven 
from  their  homes  by  the  Goths  and  Germans. 
They  took  refuge  on  a  bunch  of  islands  in 
shallow  water  a  couple  of  miles  from  shore. 
They  built  a  city  partly  on  the  islands  and 
partly  on  piles,  with  canals  for  streets,  that  do 
not  have  to  be  paved  or  drained.  They 
elected  a  duke,  or  doge,  and  had  a  sort  of  re- 
public in  which  only  taxpayers  voted  and  a 
ring  ran  things  just  as  they  do  in  other  coun- 
tries. Their  location  made  them  sailors  and 
merchants  and  gave  them  immunity  from  the 
raids  and  ravages  which  destroyed  the  towns 
in  Europe  every  now  and  then  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Venice  once  had  200,000  popula- 
tion and  has  nearly  that  many  now,  not  count- 
ing the  tourists,  who  are  a  crop  rather  than 
people.  In  all  the  city  there  is  not  a  horse 
except  a  pair  of  bronze  horses  which  were  cap- 
tured from  the  Turks.  The  traveling  and  trade 
around  town  are  in  long  slim  boats  called 
gondolas,  which  would  be  tolerated  nowhere 
else,  but  which  the  gondola  union  maintains 
exclusively  in  Venice.  Gondoliers  are  just 
the  same  as  hackmen   everywhere,  charging 


THE  NEAR  EAST  241 

all  you  will  stand,  but  they  have  the  advan- 
tage that  you  can't  get  out  and  walk. 

Our  hotel  is  on  the  Grand  Canal,  where  the 
view  is  better  and  the  rates  higher.  The  only 
way  to  get  in  or  out  the  front  door  is  by  gon- 
dola, and  the  water  comes  up  to  the  top  of 
the  porch  steps.  At  night  the  mosquitoes  and 
the  groups  of  singers  keep  us  awake,  but  the 
singers  gondola  on  when  they  get  some  money. 
Incidentally  the  Italian  musicians  never  do 
anything  lighter  than  II  Trovatore,  and  are 
really  very  high  class.  I  w^anted  one  bunch 
to  sing  something  American,  and  secured  the 
services  of  an  interpreter  to  make  the  request. 
But  they  did  not  know  anything  about  "In 
My  Harem"  or  "Alexander's  Rag  Time 
Band,"  or  the  other  classics  which  I  suggested. 
I  wanted  to  ask  them  to  give  us  "Just  as  I 
Am,  Without  One  Flea,"  but  I  refrained.  I 
knew  they  could  not  do  it  truthfully,  even  if 
they  made  the  musical  attempt. 

Aside  from  working  the  tourists,  or  perhaps 
as  side-lines  to  that  profession,  the  Venetians 
have  but  two  resources  that  I  can  discover — 
the  making  of  glass  beads  and  lace.  The 
w^orkmen  are  paid  forty  cents  a  day  for  the 


242  THE  NEAR  EAST 

very  skillful  glass  work  they  do,  and  the 
women  work  their  eyes  out  over  the  lace 
cushions  for  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  I  feel 
sorrj^  for  them  until  I  remember  that  the  union 
scale  on  tourists  is  high  enough  to  make  up 
for  any  deficit  in  the  other  industries.  The 
schedule  for  something  like  a  strand  of  glass 
beads  seems  to  be  about  one  lira  (twenty 
cents)  if  you  are  Italian,  two  liras  if  you  are 
English,  three  liras  if  you  are  American,  and 
four  liras  if  you  are  a  chump,  which  many  of 
us  are. 

There  are  15,000  houses  in  Venice,  mostly 
built  on  piles.  Under  one  church  there  are 
1,200,000  piles.  I  did  not  count  them,  but 
took  a  Venetian's  word  for  the  number.  It 
seemed  to  me  he  was  piling  it  on  rather  thick, 
but  he  was  not  charging  me  by  the  pile,  so 
I  made  no  kick.  The  water  in  the  canals  is 
about  ten  to  twelve  feet  deep  and  the  canals 
are  from  ten  to  twenty  feet  wide,  except  the 
Grand  Canal,  which  is  16  feet  deep  and  200 
feet  wide.  These  figures  are  correct,  and  my 
own  estimate,  except  the  depth,  which  I  did 


THE  NEAR  EAST  243 

not  investigate,  although  every  time  I  went 
out  in  a  gondola  I  expected  I  would. 

There  are  two  very  interesting  places  in 
Venice — St.  Mark's  Square  and  the  Rialto 
Bridge.  On  the  square  is  St.  Mark's  Church, 
the  handsomest  church  I  have  ever  seen,  ori- 
ental in  architecture  and  decoration.  In  front 
of  the  church  is  the  square  paved  with  stone 
and  marble  stolen  from  other  cities  which 
were  captured  by  the  Venetians  wdien  they 
were  doing  an  honest  business  before  the  days 
of  tourists.  On  one  side  of  the  square  is  the 
royal  palace  of  the  king  of  Italy,  with  the 
lower  floor  rented  out  to  cafes  and  shops. 
The  other  two  sides  of  the  square  are  all  shops. 
When  the  Venetians  get  anyone  in  the  square 
it  is  impossible  to  escape  without  buying  beads 
or  lace  unless  you  can  fly.  The  other  feature 
of  St.  Mark's  Square  is  the  pigeons.  Several 
hundred  years  ago  a  doge  won  a  battle  and 
sent  the  news  home  by  carrier-pigeons.  The 
city  council  was  so  pleased  that  it  passed  an 
ordinance  protecting  the  pigeons  and  provid- 
ing that  they  and  their  children's  children 
should  be  fed  at  2  o'clock  every  day  at  j)ublic 


244  THE  NEAR  EAST 

expense.  There  are  now  as  many  pigeons  re- 
siding around  St.  Mark's  Square  as  there  are 
piles  under  that  church,  and  when  2  o'clock 
arrives  they  arrive  also.  They  begin  to  come 
a  few  minutes  before  the  hour,  and  when  the 
clock  strikes  two  they  strike  the  pavement  for 
the  free  lunch. 

The  other  spectacular  place  in  Venice  is  the 
Rialto  bridge  across  the  Grand  Canal,  lined 
on  either  side  with  shops.  It  was  once  the 
board  of  trade  of  Venice,  and  you  will  remem- 
ber that  full  many  a  time  and  oft  Shylock  was 
jollied  upon  the  Rialto  by  the  smart-alecky 
Venetians.  Next  to  the  bridge  is  the  market 
where  the  common  people  do  their  shopping, 
and  where  old  clothes,  sausage  and  macaroni 
allure  the  Venetian  shopper  as  the  lace  and 
glass  beads  on  St.  Mark's  Square  do  the  folks 
from  foreign  shores.  Back  and  forth  across 
this  old  bridge  and  on  the  quay  near  by,  have 
walked  the  Venetians  for  a  thousand  years, 
buying  and  selling,  gossiping  and  politicking. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  their  ancient  glory 
has  departed  and  they  now  do  business  with 
centimes  instead  of  ducats,  it  is  easy  to  see 


THE  NEAR   EAST  245 

them  as  natural-born  traders  and  skillful  sell- 
ers at  the  best  prices  to  any  comers. 

Venice  was  an  independent  state  from  the 
time  of  its  founding,  about  800,  until  Napoleon 
arrived  in  1800  and  annexed  it  to  his  general 
collection  of  countries  and  peoples.  When 
Napoleon  was  defeated  and  his  property  di- 
vided, Venice  went  to  Austria.  But  the  Ve- 
netians were  not  happj^  in  being  clean  and 
orderly  and  Austrian.  They  organized  in- 
surgent parties  and  kept  rebelling  until  1868, 
when  they  were  handed  over  to  Italy  as  the 
result  of  a  war,  and  they  seem  perfectly  satis- 
fied with  the  present  arrangement. 


THE  JOURNEY'S  END 

This  ends  a  journey  to  the  Near  East.  It  is 
a  wonderful  country  of  curious  peoples,  and 
has  as  much  possibility  of  what  the  poets  call 
"hell-raising"  as  any  other  part  of  the  globe. 
There  are  more  cross-purposes,  ancient  feuds, 


246  THE  NEAR  EAST 

hostile  religions  and  belligerent  races  in  the 
Near  East  than  anywhere  else  on  which  the 
sun  shines.  All  that  is  necessary  to  start  a 
fight  is  to  get  out  in  the  street  and  holler. 
Through  all  the  various  peoples,  with  their 
different  churches,  customs  and  languages, 
runs  the  oriental  air  of  mystery  and  fatalism. 
Likewise  there  is  a  harmonious  odor  due  to 
the  lack  of  sanitation  and  the  use  of  perfume 
instead  of  soap  and  water. 

The  Near  East  has  a  special  charm  for  the 
tourist  from  the  West  because  of  its  history 
and  its  queerness,  its  art  and  its  age.  It  w^as 
once  a  great  little  world  of  its  own,  and  now 
that  it  is  discovering  itself  and  preparing  to 
progress  or  perish,  it  is  a  study  for  the  scholar 
and  a  problem  for  the  prophet. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 

HEtrO  IDURl 

SEP    21387 

REC'D  LDURl 

OCT  26 1994 

Form  L9-75m-7,'61  (Cl437s 

4)444 

58  01210  7446 


idCl) 


.,,,rn.  Dcr.inNAi  1  inRAfiV  FACILIT-C 


AA    000  738  570    i 


DR 

15 

M82n 

1913 


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